On Tuesday morning, November 8th, a mayday call was received by the U.S. Coast Guard regarding a 40ft fishing vessel with two people onboard taking on water 10 nautical miles from shore just after crews completed surf training that morning.
Two 47 ft. Motor Life Boats were dispatched out of Winchester Bay and a helicopter from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station North Bend, positioning one of the Motor Life Boats just inside the bar to stand by as a safety boat, while the other crossed the breaking bar arriving at the scene after a 30 minute transit.
With sea conditions of 14-16ft steep swells and 40kt winds, it was determined to be unsafe for the 47 ft. Motor Life Boat to go alongside the distressed vessel. This meant that to get the people off the boat, they would have to enter the water.
The decision was then made to lower a rescue swimmer from the helicopter to the lifeboat, while underway. The rescue swimmer, then deployed from the Motor Life Boat and swam to the disabled vessel. The rescue swimmer had one of the people enter the water, then pulled them away from the vessel as the Motor Life Boat repositioned and picked up both the swimmer and survivor. The rescue swimmer then redeployed and the steps were repeated for the second individual.
Once back onboard, both subjects were assessed and one was treated for an injury to their hand during the over one hour transit back to the station where EMS was standing by.
