May 19, 2013
Terry Womble's dock in Carrabelle sits empty. The boat that used to call it home never made it back from what should have been a fun-filled fishing trip.
Womble, and five other men, set out on Friday night at 7:30.
By 5:00 am on Saturday their boat was underwater.
"I stayed up til about twelve thirty one o'clock fishing. Went to bed and everything seemed normal," said Byron Sheffield.
Todd Thompson woke up to what sounded like water in the hull.
"It didn't alarm me until the generator cut off. And when the generator cut off I checked the rear deck and the boat was already well underwater," said Thompson.
Todd woke everybody up. The men kicked into survival mode.
"Did a head count and a mayday and everybody jumped off the boat," said Thompson.
"No, you screamed bloody murder, Get your life jackets on, get your life jackets on. We are sinking," said Doug Fisher.
"And I grabbed the life jackets and threw them down to everyone," said Harrison King.
The men would be in the water for the next four hours. They say safety equipment was crucial to their survival.
"We went in the water and everyone had at least one life jacket. Plus, we also had two satellite locating beacons. EPRB's," said Thompson.
At first it was dark. Even at eighty degrees, the water cools the body down. The men say they settled in and tried not to think about the worst case scenario.
"We made everybody say their name every twenty to thirty minutes," said Womble.
"We stayed, everybody held onto each other near the cooler. We were basically like this most of the time, especially the first couple hours. We would do a head count and everybody would say, hey, I'm OK."
They tried to keep the conversation light.
"Anything that comes to your mind. When he was gonna get a new boat. Yep ....that came up a lot. We talked about Harrison's hair. And it made it the whole time. Even in the helicopter it was still spiked up."
"Time flew. Seems like we were only in the water an hour," said Fisher.
"The only time it felt long was whenever we'd see that helicopter. And it'd come towards us a little bit and then it'd disappear for about fifteen or twenty minutes. And that happened about three times," said Harrison King.
"We knew that they knew we were here. So, just have faith," said Sheffield.
The men were rescued at 8:30 am. The boat lies 110 feet underwater. The men are grateful to be back on dry land.
"Nobody died. That was the main thing. Hats off to the US Coast Guard and hats off to my crew," said Womble.
