On August 31, 2014, the Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound received a mayday call from a good Samaritan who found a capsized boat with 8 people, 7 adults and a child, in distress. The good Samaritan was able to pull up the 3 people in the water, while the rest clung to the side of his vessel.
A 45-foot response boat soon came and recovered the rest of the stranded passengers, bringing them all to Bainbridge Island, afterwards towing the capsized vessel to Eagle Harbor.
Mike Allen, the search and rescue coordinator at the Coast Guard’s Puget Sound Sector, credits the preparedness and response of the good Samaritan as being instrumental in the rescue. ‘Had he not come upon them, the current could have carried them out further and the situation could have become much worse,’ he was quoted as saying.
As the child was the only one wearing their life preserver, the Coast Guard reminds everyone, even recreational mariners, to wear their jacket, as it becomes much harder to access and put on once you are in the water.
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