DVIDS – News – A life jacket saved my friend’s life

Since living in the Midwest, my saltwater fishing experiences are usually limited to annual summer vacations on half-day trips on charter fishing boats. However, my wife and I went saltwater fishing in November with a few friends for three days on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway along the North Edisto River near Edisto Island, SC. Our friends live in SC and fish there regularly in their 18 foot long Hancock Skiff. They are very experienced anglers, but they usually don’t fish in the winter when the water is cold. On our first day of fishing, a friend of mine fell overboard in 15.3°C (59.5°F) water and rolled away from the boat very quickly in a rapidly rising tide. It could have easily ended in tragedy and I am sharing our lessons learned in hopes of preventing others from drowning in a similar incident.

Long before making this trip, I had encouraged my friends to buy comfortable inflatable life jackets with suspenders. Luckily, they had purchased a few automatic/manual inflatable life jackets, which can be inflated automatically when submerged in water, manually by pulling the cord, or manually by blowing through the inflation tube. Unfortunately, for about six months, they had never taken their lifejackets out of their packaging. I cocked their life jackets by screwing in the CO2 cartridges that came with their life jackets and explained to my friends how they worked. This setup was easy, but on other styles of inflatables, it’s important to read the manual to learn how to properly cock them. I also suggested that they take spare CO2 cartridges and coils with them on their travels. They put on their life jackets with a bit of reluctance and quickly realized how comfortable they were to wear while fishing. They also quickly discovered how life jackets save lives.

We were anchored when a friend of mine fell overboard, so the first thing his spouse did was put the anchor on board. I went to start the boat, but the engine cut-off switch (ECOS) was not attached so it wouldn’t start. I screamed to see who had the OSCE thinking someone had it still attached and hoping it wasn’t attached to my friend who fell overboard. No one knew where it was, so I looked in the storage compartment below where the OSCE attaches to the boat. I found out that it was accidentally disconnected when the storage cabinet door was closed, so there it was. About the same time I reattached the OSCE, my friend who had weighed anchor arrived to start the boat.

This process probably happened faster than it looked, and I was amazed at how quickly and how far my friend who fell overboard got away from the boat on the rising tide. . Wearing a life jacket helped her stay calm as she sped away from the boat. At one point, she even proudly exclaimed “I saved my $100 fishing rod.” She was trying to swim towards the boat while holding on to her pole, but couldn’t move forward with the strong outgoing tidal current.

I know from my training as a lifeguard that when wearing clothes it is essential to swim with arm and leg movements underwater and that the clothes do not weigh you down in the water. Wet clothes only weigh you down when swimming with strokes above water or coming out of the water. Her layers of clothing and her boots certainly helped insulate her from the cold water. Sudden entry into cold water usually causes people to drown within the first minute from hyperventilation, gasping, or panic. Also, in cold water, you can lose your ability to swim in ten minutes on average, especially if you are not wearing a life jacket.

We circled the boat to catch it and luckily we drifted against someone’s dock which helped stop the ship from traveling any further. She quickly floated up against our port side and held her ground until we shut down the engine so she could get back on board. The boat originally didn’t have a boarding ladder, but my friends made a collapsible extension ladder that attaches to a nice platform that worked great. After bringing my friend back on board, we luckily had extra dry clothes so she could get her wet clothes out and dry off which allowed her to warm up.

Then she thanked us for saving her life and we were all very grateful that she had her life jacket on. Over the next few days we discussed what kept this event from ending in disaster and what we could do better next time. Of course, wearing a life jacket was at the top of our to-do list. Unfortunately, of all the fishermen we saw on the water these three days, we were the only people I saw wearing life jackets.

Another thing was to always make sure the OSCE stays attached to the vessel when closing the compartment door below, and of course never keep the ECOs attached to anyone on board after turning off the engine and while it is anchored. Took a while to get the anchor up and my friends have a buoy that attaches to the end of the anchor line which allows for quicker release of the anchor but they hadn’t brought it on this trip. This would have allowed us to drop anchor more quickly and come back to haul it up later.

The foldable extension ladder and platform they had built for their boat was also a lifesaver! Everyone should try out their ladders to make sure they can use them. Amazingly, I tried the ladder on my pontoon boat last summer and have some work to do to make it easier to use.

It would have been nice to have an easily accessible rescue bag or just a rope attached to any disposable device (i.e. flotation seat cushion etc.) to throw at her as soon as she fell overboard. That may have helped keep him from drifting so far. However, in this situation, the receding tide was pushing him away from the boat so quickly that it would have been difficult to reach him by throwing any type of rope. Also, the disposable on their boat didn’t have a rope attached.

If my friend had drowned while we were fishing it would have been devastating and we wouldn’t have been able to enjoy our delicious sea trout dinner. Hopefully the lessons we learned will provide some insights that could potentially help you or someone you care about survive a similar incident.