Dad dies in fishing horror
Dad Marty McMillan dies in fishing horror
BY DEBBIE TUMA AND BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Monday, December 1st 2008, 2:31 AM
Marty L. McMillan, 51, was not wearing a life preserver, was tossing the anchor in the water when its line got tangled around his leg and dragged him overboard.
A father-son fishing trip turned deadly Sunday for a Long Island man who was pulled under the water by an anchor rope as his panicked son watched helplessly.
Marty McMillan, 51, of Wantagh, drowned in the choppy waters 12 miles off Montauk Point.
"My dad's in the water!" McMillan's 17-year-old son, Cody, screamed as he raised rescuers with a desperate Mayday radio call.
"My son is completely distraught," Cody's mother and McMillan's ex-wife, Susan McMillan, told the Daily News Sunday night. "They were very, very close. They did everything together. He [Cody] was his pride and joy."
Coast Guard officials said Cody McMillan radioed his desperate Mayday call about 9:30 a.m.
Fishing boat Capt. John DeMaio responded to the call from about 100 yards away and helped pull McMillan from the chilly, 52-degree water.
"His son, Cody, shot a flare gun and then called the Coast Guard," said Roger Brevet, another fisherman. "On my radio, I heard his son in a panic."
DeMaio had already started cardiopulmonary resuscitation by the time a Coast Guard boat reached the scene.
McMillan was taken back to shore, where he died at Southampton Hospital.
Cody McMillan and two of his friends were rescued from his dad's 30-foot fishing vessel, the Xiao Mu Ji, whose engine conked out when the anchor line got snared in the propeller.
Officials said Marty McMillan, who was not wearing a life preserver, was tossing the anchor in the water when its line got tangled around his leg and dragged him overboard.
"I would say these circumstances are unusual," said Darryl Lanki of the U.S. Coast Guard station at Montauk.
Montauk marina owner Ed Miller said McMillan had kept his boat at his dock for eight years.
"He was an adventurous guy who had a passion for running offshore for yellowfin tuna," Miller said. "Marty always wanted to go farther offshore. He loved to go where other boats didn't go."
McMillan was president of Intelli-Tec Security Services in Westbury, L.I., a firm he founded in 1999 and reportedly built into the 55th-largest security company in the nation.
McMillan, who was raised in Kansas City, Mo., was a kung fu master and an avid outdoorsman. Friends said McMillan and Cody frequently used wooden bows and handmade arrows to go big-game hunting. "They were true fishing buddies," Miller said of McMillan and his son. "We feel terrible. It's a great loss."
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