Rescue at Sea Monmouth Beach...

[DarkSkies]

This is posted with permission from MSG Danny, aka Danny V or Kayak Danny.....
one of the true gentlemen of the sport, and always willing to help the new guy...in fact, he takes new guys out every spring to teach them some of the ropes....:thumbsup:


Danny was out scouting last week, saw some birds, went for it, got some nice 20+ fish, and got into a decent body of fish before they moved South to Island Beach and the land of the sand eels.... :clapping:

On the way to the fishing, he saved a guy's life...
he's so humble that he may not view it quite that starkly, but I and others believe that if it were not for him and his quick thinking, that guy would have drowned. :thumbsup:

Because of this and the way he is, if there were an award for best kayak sportsman, he would be in the lead...and he continually goes out of his way to educate and inform. Beyond that, he's a fishin maniac, travelling across the country to get into various fish on his yak....there aren't too many fish he will reject targeting, as he's a guy who fishes for the love of fishing....:fishing:

[DarkSkies]

I'm hereby honored to present his story....








"After spending 4 hours in a tree after sunrise, I decided to load the car and take a drive to check out MB. I arrived just after 1 PM and was shocked to see all the work being done with the beach repleshiment. The ocean was about 300 yards from the lot!

I noticed plenty of splashes just south of the launch and after trying to decide if I wanted to fight the flat surf and the 15-20 west winds, I loaded everything, got dressed and headed down to the surf.

I was just ready to launch and I noticed a mid 20's male loooking like he was ready to take a swim. He comes over to me and wants to know if I can take him to the dredging ship about 1/2 mile off shore. He telles me that he HAS to go to the ship. I told him my kayak can not take two people and he gets undressed and starts swimming out! I told him that he would die with the water temps but he was determined. As he enters the water, cops start rushing down to the water and start screaming at him to return, but he keeps swimming.

I already launched and was a couple hundred yards away when he starts screaming that he can't swim and he needs help. The cops on the beach are yelling at me to help him and I start to paddle over to him. As I approached him, I told him to just hold onto my kayak and DO NOT try to get on. I also told him that if he flips me, he would not have to worry about killing himself, that I would kill him!

He held onto the side of the kayak, and I paddled him in close enough so he would just have to make a few strokes and he would be able to walk into shore.

The cops were trying to thank me, but I had my sights on fish breaking water a few hundred yards south.










Now to the fishing......as I headed south, I trolled on the out side of many bunker breaking the surface only a couple hundred yards from the shore. I was trolling a Tsunami sand eel and hoooked up and landed 3 keeper stripers in the first 30 minutes on the troll.

After that, I started heading north to working birds just off the high rises and from 3PM until dark, it was a fish on for the entire time. I would say that I landed close to 25 stripers, all on the same sand eel soft lure.

The first 3 fish I got were the biggest at about 32 inches and most of the rest were all in the upper 20's with about 10 total being overe keeper size.

I got them trolling and casting when I was close enough to the clouds of birds.





Besides the swimming nut case, it was a great 3 hours on the water, and the wind really never was a factor. "









**********
Here's the pic of Danny's fish....
14422

[DarkSkies]

I believe the epilogue to this story is that Dan checked the next day, to follow up. He was told that the guy was despondent over something and wanted to kill himself by swimming to the dredge.

He paid some strangers about $200 to watch his 2 children, and gave them his wallet before he started swimming out....








I know a lot of ya's are gonna start judging this guy, irresponsible, crazy, bad father, how could he do this with kids around, etc....

I just want to share that there have been times in my alcoholism that I felt like this guy did..and quite a few times I planned to take my life...that's over now, but I always feel a sort of affinity to people whose lives are so bad, that they feel this is the only choice....

And while I don't agree with him leaving the children with strangers...when a person thinks about suicide, they really aren't thinking rationally, and thus he wouldn't be focused on his children if his mission was to end his life....

So feel free to say what you wish about the guy who tried to kill himself, it's a free country...but please think for a moment before you judge him too harshly...that guy, could be any one of us, who at one time or another felt like we were at the end of our rope, with no way out....and that's truly sad...I hope he gets the help he needs, and can eventually move on with his life and back into being a Father that will be there for his kids....

The real thanks is to Danny, whose quick thinking saved the life of another, without losing his own.....a true American Hero, thanks again Dan for doing what you do...:clapping: :thumbsup: :HappyWave:

[ledhead36]

That is an awsome story dark! And your friend dan sounds like a very humble guy. Congrats to him and good wishes for him to get some cows, if they still come in,

[storminsteve]

Good job to DannyMSG!!!

[jigfreak]

I don't know if I would have saved the guy, too much risk of both drowning. Hats off to Dan.:clapping:

[dogfish]

He was a lucky lad to have that yakker so close by. The thing about cold water drowning, like you said, is that you don't drown fast, rather your system shuts down. You are alive as you slowly sink and your lungs fill with water. It's a surreal kind of death, like being declared dead and coming back to life as they cut into your brain with the autopsy saw. Freaky, and not recommended.

[plugcrazy]

Awesome rescue, that guy is a hero!

[stormchaser]

Great story, thanks for posting. Nice bass too.

[clamchucker]

A heroic offort.

[CharlieTuna]

Kudos to msgDanny for his quick thinking.