In Dramatic High Seas Rescue, Four Fishermen Rescued By Good Samaritans Off Galveston, Texas, Coast

GALVESTON, TX — A dramatic rescue on the high seas occurred Friday afternoon off the coast of Galveston, when four people floating along a life raft were rescued in the Gulf of Mexico by a pair of Good Samaritans.

The four men are alive today thanks to a Good Samaritan who saved the fishermen after their boat capsized amid rough weather while 100 miles southeast of Galveston.

"He pulled me into the boat by my pants, I instantly grabbed a hold of him, I could have kissed him in that second, I was just happy,” Derrick “Captain Chop” Greene, told KPRC. Greene said he and three other men were fishing commercially when sudden and strong storms descended, creating choppy waters and upending their boat.

“We sat there for maybe 10, 15 minutes without the life raft and then finally the life raft actually wanted to work, until that point I was about 70 to 80 percent sure we weren't going to come home,” Eric Gonzalez, Greene’s deckhand, told the news station.

U.S. Coast Guard officials said Friday they received a satellite distress signal, or an Electronic Position Indicating Radio Beacon, at around 12:30 p.m. Some 15 minutes later, Coast Guard officials received a telephone call from a family member of the boat's captain saying they had received messages through the boat crew’s SPOT Satellite Messenger saying they were in distress and needed help.

Mike Regan, who was near the four men, was close enough to receive their SOS call and helped the Coast Guard help locate them. “They knew I was out in the area, close enough to hear the call,” Regan told the news station. "They're lucky somebody was out there."

Based on his phone call, the U.S. Coast Guard dispatched a helicopter to locate the men and were able to ultimately rescue all four.

Mark Baker, one of the men on Regan's boat, detailed the ordeal in a Facebook post.

"I've never been so glad to get back on land!" Baker wrote. "We started heading in and about 80 miles from Galveston Capt. Mike Regan heard a mayday call. It was very faint at first so we kept the heading we were on and it soon got stronger until we could hear them say their vessel was capsized. It just happened to be some friends of ours who keep their boat a few slips down from ours."

The crew finally reached the four men in the nick of time amid strong weather.

"When we got there we found 4 very cold guys spooning in a life raft, who were very happy to see us," Baker wrote. "We loaded them up, and continued our trip home. Thank God we were in the right place at the right time, they had a handheld radio which only has a range of about two miles, and in reality they're lucky Captain Mike heard their faint distress call over the motors, and rain, because I sure didn't."

He said he was grateful for having been at the right place at the right time and was able to save the four fishermen — wet, cold and in distress but uninjured — and help pluck them out of the sea to safety.

"The fishing was slow, it was cold, and very WET," Baker wrote. "There was a reason we were out there, and it wasn't to go fishing like we all thought. It was very fortunate it all turned out the way it did."

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