Character in Action by Donald T. Phillips

Author:Donald T. Phillips [Phillips, Donald T.; Loy, James M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612515472
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

The Coast Guard received a call reporting that a couple of people were drowning off the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. Word was immediately relayed to a 21-foot boat patrolling about a half-mile away. “We’re on our way,” confirmed the coxswain, a twenty-one-year-old third-class boatswain’s mate less than two years out of Cape May.

Upon arrival, he and his two-person crew (which included a second-class machinery technician and a seaman apprentice) spotted a ten-year-old boy flailing about in the surf. He had apparently been caught in a rip tide. Coast Guard policy, however, did not allow this type of boat into the surf zone because of the risk to the crew. “I think we should go in there,” the coxswain said to his shipmates. “What do you think?”

“Let’s go get that kid!” they responded.

So the coxswain steered his boat into the dangerous surf. But when they pulled the child out, they found his thirty-five-year-old mother underneath. Completely submerged, she was valiantly holding her son above the surface so he could breathe. The two crew members immediately pulled the woman out of the water and got her into the boat. The child, in an apparent state of shock, was suffering from hypothermia and in need of immediate medical care. The mother was unconscious, not breathing at all, and had only a faint pulse.

While the crew administered rescue breathing and CPR to the victims, the coxswain knew he had to act quickly. There was an EMS ambulance on the beach and it was obvious that would be the quickest way to get the woman and child the medical attention they needed. Once again, however, Coast Guard policy barred this particular boat from being driven onto the beach. But this was a matter of life and death.

“I’m going to go straight for that ambulance and beach the boat,” he said to his team members attending the victims. “Okay?”

“Yeah! Go for it!” they replied. “She will never survive the twenty-minute ride to the dock.”

The coxswain then timed the waves just right, rode the surf onto the beach and, in a matter of minutes, got the victims to the ambulance, where they were whisked away to the hospital. No damage was done to the boat and no member of the crew was harmed. Unfortunately, the mother later died, but the ten-year-old boy survived.

In the natural course of events, the station CO initiated an investigation and filed a mishap report. That report affirmed the correctness of the decision while noting that the occasions on which beaching is warranted occur very rarely. Afterward, care was taken to prevent this good decision from becoming a precedent for future bad decisions: training was conducted to ensure that the crew knew the importance of each factor in their decision.

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