“A Storm Too Soon” – A True Story of a Daring, Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue at Sea
We all know of the tragic events surrounding “The Perfect Storm” in 1991, but in 2007, a little-known disaster prompted one of the largest and most intense rescue efforts in US Coast Guard history. Two hundred and fifty miles out to sea, in the Gulf Stream, seventy-foot waves battered a tattered life raft. Desperately clinging onto the raft were three men - a Canadian, a Brit, and their captain, JP DeLutz, a dual citizen of America and France. The waves repeatedly tossed the men out of their tiny, frail vessel, and JP, with 9 broken ribs, was hypothermic and on the verge of death. The captain, a tough-minded character, had to rely on the same inner strength that helped him survive an abusive childhood to outlast the storm and save his crew.
Trying to reach these survivors before it’s too late, four US Coast Guardsmen battle hurricane force winds in their Sikorsky Jayhawk helicopter. They know the waves in the Gulf Stream will be extreme, but when they arrive they are astounded to find crashing seas of seventy feet, with some waves topping eighty feet. To lower the helicopter and then drop a rescue swimmer into such chaos is a high-risk proposition. The pilots wonder if they have a realistic chance of saving the sailors clinging to the broken life raft, and if they will be able to retrieve their own rescue swimmer from the towering seas. Once they commit to the rescue, they find themselves in almost as much trouble as the survivors, facing several life and death decisions.
Please join us for our next Education Committee Event when award-winning author Michael Tougias will use slides and Coast Guard videos of the rescue to transport us into the heart of the storm and relive this amazing, heroic event, as if we were there. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself asking, “what would I have done?”
Mike Tougias, Author of “A Storm Too Soon”
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Stonington Harbor Yacht Club
9 Stonington Commons, Stonington, CT
5:30pm - 6:30pm Presentation and discussion
Admission: Members $5.00 Non-members $10.00
Please R.S.V.P. to Caroline Pierce at 860-535-0112 or office@shyc.us
