I am a 49-year-old Alaskan commercial fisherman, who survived a near-death experience. I hope my personal story will convince people of the need to get the best safety equipment available as they go out to live life to the fullest. There were a lot of factors in my rescue, but clearly the ACR Electronics gear, the SATELLITE2 406™ EPIRB and the Firefly™3 Rescue Strobe Light, were critical in saving my life.
Preparation and buying state-of-the-art survival gear is vital in my business. Thank you ACR Electronics for your pursuit of excellence!
'Just don’t get in a hurry to get home, it’s full on wintertime now.' These words from a friend spoken a week earlier were sitting in the back
of my mind as I traveled. It was November 14th, the fishing season was over, it was time to get home and I was in a hurry. Radio weather forecasted a storm warning. I was alone crossing the Gulf of Alaska from the Black Cod fishing grounds to my home port of Kodiak.
In over 20 years of commercial fishing, I had learned to never let
outside influences affect my decisions on traveling in bad weather. Yet,
there I was halfway from home, trying to hug the shore but clearly
pushing the weather with my 42-foot, wooden-hulled vessel Pacific Lady.
All of a sudden I was hit by a gust of wind that could only be called a
true "Williwaw," a term used by Alaskan Natives of the Aleutian Islands
to describe notoriously dangerous wind gusts, several times the speed of
the prevailing wind, funneling through bays and passes.
The boat laid over beyond 40 degrees and just stayed there.
When I saw water pouring over the port rail, I knew I was losing my boat. Just after 2:30 p.m., I hurriedly made a VHF radio call and got no
answer. Seawater rose up against the windows, and I began jamming myself
into my survival suit.
I issued another Mayday with my lat/on position, but, again, there was no response. Water gushed in the wheelhouse door and turned my world completely sideways. I was now swimming in chest deep water, trapped
against the ceiling by the flotation of the suit and still inside the
boat! I was thrown around before, somehow, I muscled myself out the door
against the rushing water.
As I scrambled across the chaos of rigging, I decided to release the
raft first and to quickly get away from the boat. I didn't grab my
SATELLITE2 406™ EPIRB -- even though fishermen consider it a top
priority to get the beacon manually released and drifting with the
survivors.
I relaxed; somewhat confident, knowing the SATELLITE2 was
state-of-the-art safety equipment with a new hydrostatic release that
would activate the beacon as soon as the boat sank. I never looked back.
I had no idea that the boat would not actually sink until several hours
later and, therefore, the signal would not be sent immediately.
Exhausted by the struggle to get out of the boat, my battle to survive
began immediately. I found myself in what is called a "Buoyant
Apparatus" by the U.S. Coast Guard, essentially a 3-foot x 4-foot life
ring with a web floor and handhold lines around the outer edge. The
primary raft for my vessel, mounted out of reach on the stern, was never
an option in my escape.
Riding 10-foot waves in 65-knot winds, I wrapped my hands tightly around
some lines, and did all I could to stay in or on top of the rigid
flotation platform. The winds were so strong that the waves were not
only stacking high but the crests were being torn off the wave tops,
transforming the scene into a maelstrom of water and wind.
My only hope was the EPIRB releasing and alerting the Coast Guard of my
position. I figured it would take them at least an hour to launch a
C-130 search aircraft and fly the 150 miles to my location. I knew the
sun would set around 6 p.m. so I had high hopes of seeing a rescue plane
and helicopter before sunset. But I also realized that if I didn’t see
any aircraft searching before dark, then the EPIRB signal (which has to
be some ten feet under water before releasing) was not activated. The
possibility of another fishing vessel traveling in this weather anywhere
near me was slim to none.
I was pitched out of the raft by breaking seas many times, and learned
to recognize a larger breaking wave by the sound of it hissing up behind
me. I gauged these seas to be nearly 30 feet high. They would literally
turn the raft upside down, throw me out and down the face of the wave, a
sensation similar to body surfing. I was completely overcome and held
under for several seconds.
I was rolled 12 to 15 times. The third or fourth time, the raft was torn
right out of my hand. I bobbed to the surface and saw the float
screaming down the wave. I thought, 'I either get that raft or I die
right now. I swam as hard as I could and was able to grab one of the
lines trailing off of it.
Ice-cold seawater seeped inside the survival suit through leaks in the
face seal. As the hours stretched on, I started feeling hopeless as I
thought that my boat still must be lying on its side and not sinking,
stopping the EPIRB release from working. Surely if this was the case,
nobody knew what was happening.
I learned later from authorities my boat finally sank around 9:30 p.m.
That's when they picked up my beacon's signal, verified my registration
with my wife and initiated the search mission. I had been in the water
about seven hours at this point and had drifted over seven miles from
the boat and the EPIRB.
I finally spotted the Coast Guard C-130 in the night sky when it flew
overhead. The aircrew saw me too -- or more to the point, saw my ACR
Electronics Firefly™3 Rescue Strobe Light on my immersion suit in the
huge frothing water. The Coast Guard told me, 'That strobe light saved
your life, no doubt.'
The C-130 crew sent flares down to help mark my position. They then
dropped life rafts from 200 feet above; one miraculously landed next to
me. Low on fuel, the plane returned to base, but a helicopter arrived on
scene while a fishing boat, Heritage, was diverted to pick me up. I was
brought aboard the boat about 1 a.m. on November 16.
I was in sound condition. Afterwards, I heard that both the pilots and
Kodiak doctors were amazed I had not been hypothermic after that much
exposure.
A Coast Guard survival expert even exclaimed, 'You’re the
survival story of the year!'
ACR Electronics, Inc.,
www.acrelectronics.com, a Cobham plc company, designs and
manufactures a complete line of safety and survival products including
EPIRBs, PLBs, AIS, SARTs, Strobe Lights, Life Jacket Lights, Search
Lights and safety accessories. The quality systems of this facility have
been registered by UL to the ISO 9001:2000 Series Standards. Recognized
as the world leader in safety and survival technologies, ACR has
provided safety equipment to the aviation and marine industries as well
as to the military since 1956. The company is headquartered in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida and employs 200 at its manufacturing facility.
ACR Contact page
John Bell 954-970-3394