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Stories by Tim Wiley
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Blow Your Whistle,
Then Walk Away
By Tim Wiley Sheriff’s Marine Patrol Deputy Del
Already in the twenty-one foot rigid inflatable all purpose
rescue boat with jet drive, I received a call over my radio stating
that there
was a kayaker who fell out of his kayak and was getting carried out to
sea. This kayaker was blowing his
whistle, a universal distress signal for small craft in need of
assistance. Working with a
newer boating safety officer,
I navigated the
rescue boat out of our harbor towards the area of the call. When I hit the open seas, I realized that the
swells (the rolling, non breaking waves in the ocean) were now between
eleven
and fourteen feet in height and they were frequent.
Wave
Diagram
Imagine that the height of a boat like this is approximately
eight feet. This means that the waves
towered over our vessel. When at the
bottom of the swell, I could not see through the swell to spot the
destination,
or the person in need of rescue.
 (Click on
image for larger view)
Boat Navigating Swell We were in
When the swell hit us, our boat would climb up vertically. The wind was 30 knots and we were free falling off the back side of the waves. Every wave was knocking us back to the back of the boat. My partner was new, and attempting to get any stability, jammed himself into a cubby hole, just barely hanging on. Another Deputy
had arrived on land, looking
out to the scene
and saw the victim now face down, not moving.
There was no Coast Guard station nearby. It is ninety miles away and they were launching a helicopter, which would take thirty to forty-five minutes for them to get on scene. I was
thinking, “I have to get there. If he is
face down, I’m pretty sure that I’m
his only chance of surviving.” So I
decided to keep on going.
I was pushing harder trying to get to him. The same conditions that should have taken three to four minutes were taking twenty. Conditions were so violent. Wind was howling, water was hitting us, we were being tossed around and thrown down. Somehow we wedged ourselves in the boat. Our light bar was falling off of the boat. Anything I could possibly throw out of my way (meaning into the water) that was flying through the air, I did. It was so violent! Finally,
completely soaked, we arrived on scene. We
found the victim, who was in somewhat of a
protected area, behind a large rock
formation we call Castle
Rock. The conditions were not so bad in
that area because the rock acted as protection. But
by that time, everything was broken on our boat. We
saw that the victim was conscious and
holding onto his kayak. Thankful for
that, I made a decision to just get him onto our boat and take our boat
up onto
the beach, as opposed to fighting our way back through the violent seas
that we
had just come from to get back to the harbor. It
was a decision I made for the safety of all people
involved,
including myself.
I tried to get him onto the boat over the gunwale (tubes on side of the boat) with my right hand while steering with my left. In doing so, I injured my right rotator cuff. Feeling like I had really damaged something in my arm, I still got him aboard and prepared to beach our boat. The victim
was asking to get his kayak, which was fifteen
feet long. It was full of water and did
not have inflated ballasts, which help with flotation.
Hovering just under the surface, the kayak
would have been like a huge anchor. Trying
to retrieve it would have put everybody on my boat
in huge
danger. Instead of paying attention to
the kayak, I chose to pay attention to getting us on land.
I took the surf zone back and beached the boat. We all got there safely. The victim got off the boat, walked to his family who was waiting for him, refused medical attention and walked away. He didn’t say a word. The next day
he called and talked to my sargent. He
said that he was upset that they didn’t retrieve his kayak and wanted
to sue
the department for not retrieving it.
My sargent responded saying they reserve the right to send him a bill and, in all actuality, he could possibly be responsible for paying for the rescue and the damage incurred, including that to the boat. Again, the victim just walked away. I was off duty or on light duty for two to three months nursing my arm back to health. |
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