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Thread: Terrifying Experience
Yesterday 11:57 PM #1
Jason1977
Spike Join Date:Oct 2009
Posts:50
Terrifying Experience
Sorry in advance that this is so long...but at the end, please hug your babies and family and be thankful and praise god for the grace that he blesses us all with.
Went to Cumberland (Grider Hill Dock) on Friday with the family (Wife, 5 year old daughter, 11 year old son and 14 friends from our church) for a weekend / holiday excursion and a break from the daily grind.
On Saturday we decided to go to a cove directly across from the dock, maybe 3/4 of a mile out or so. We were headed back in to the dock around 6:00 pm. About 100 yards out to the left of us we saw a fairly good sized boat giving it hell and just about to enter the no wake area. Bob (driving our boat) was at first going to try to make it across in front of the boat. He realized that it was going to be close and throttled down and threw it in neutral. Not soon enough...that other boat got within about 15-20 feet of us and swerved to his right and threw his full wake @ our boat and rolled our boat (a 26 footer) completely capsizing it, in 125' of water. Our boat rolled to the right and didn't come back man. We hit the water. It immediately threw 15 of us into the water. (Shame on me for this part) --- my 5 year old daughter, about 5 minutes prior changed out of her swimming clothes into dry clothes and we forgot to put her life jacket back on. God was watching over us...she was sitting on my lap when we hit the water. I went under water, clutching her in my right arm and I was swimming to beat hell with my left arm. We finally popped back up. I immediately started to look for my son and wife. I saw that my son (who backflipped out of the boat, and was under it for a brief moment) was completely panicked but was at least floating with his life jacket on and my wife was directly next to him, panicked but treading water and staying afloat. I yelled for other boaters that were finally close by to come and take my daughter, as I was quickly losing strength trying to keep us afloat. God bless those strangers that came and grabbed her from my arms out of the water. I quickly went to my son and wife and got them into the same boat. At that moment we realized that a 4 year old, 10 year old, and their grandmother (our pastor) were submerged in the belly of the boat upside down and filling with water. Bob (the captain) managed to get under water, break through some glass and pull the boy out (he had blacked out by then but was OK when he surfaced). My buddy Ricky (a Ludlow fireman) managed to pull several cushions out of the sinking boat after finally breaking out another window. Our pastor somehow managed to grab her granddaughter and swim out of that broken window and swam up to safety after what seemed an eternity. Much longer and they surely would have been dead.
Glory be to God who was surely watching over all of us on that day. All 18 of us made into several stranger's boats and made it safely back to land without so much as a bruise on a couple of folks. The boat completely sank to the bottom after about only 5 minutes.
Fellas'...this was a life changer for me and my family and I pray that none of you ever find yourself in this type of situation. The fear that comes over you and the quickness that it went from fun family outing to potential life ending calamity is completely overwhelming and devastating. We are all still shaken up and in complete amazement and shock that this happened.
My sincere thanks (and that is a major understatement) to all that assisted in saving my family's lives. You have no idea how completely appreciative that I am. I don't know your names and I don't remember your faces but you were all angels from heaven yesterday and may god bless each and every one of you for the roles that you played. There are really no words that I have that can express my gratitude.
Please guys...be safe out there and watch out for each other. This will likely be the last time that I ever step foot on a boat.
Go grab your babies and your wives or whoever and give them an extra long & strong hug tonight or tomorrow and appreciate them and love them and realize how special they are. Situations like this really put life into perspective and quickly make you realize what your top priorities are. God bless you guys...I am attaching a picture of the loves of my life that were nearly snatched away from me in the blink of an eye.
God Bless...
PS: If I EVER cross paths with that SOB in the other boat...may god have mercy on your soul. He never stopped and was never found as of today. You are a ruthless POS.
http://yournewboat.com/85CarverSantaCruzNLWS/index.htm
