NC Fishermen Clung To Debris 14 Hours Before Coast Guard Rescue

OCRACOKE, NC — Rescue crews pulled two North Carolina fishermen clinging to a cooler off the coast in the Pamlico Sound after their shrimp boat overturned during bad weather, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The rescue ended a harrowing 14-hour ordeal that had left the pair floating in the open water throughout the night.

According to the Coast Guard report, the two men left Ocracoke Island on the morning of July 17 on a 35-foot boat named the Mad Lady II to go shrimping in the sound. Later that evening, a wife of one of the men called the Coast Guard on behalf of her husband and said the boat’s generator wasn’t working properly and that they were trying to find safety along the shore during a brewing storm.

One of the men, identified as Kenny Rustick, has been a commercial fisherman for more than 30 years, WRAL reported. Rustick said the boat began to take on water as they encountered an oncoming storm. Then, a stabilizer broke, sending 17,000 pounds of shrimp to one side of the boat, he told the station.

The fisherman were able to escape the boat’s cabin in the knick of time.

“And the boat rolled over right then,” he told the station. “I was still in the cabin and it flooded with water and I was able to get the window opened,” he said.

After receiving the call Tuesday, rescue crews were dispatched from the Coast Guard’s North Carolina command center, as well as Air Station Elizabeth City. Station Hatteras Inlet boat crews, local police and state wildlife officers were also deployed.

The crews found the capsized vessel the next morning shortly before 6:30 a.m. about 4 miles south of Wysocking Bay, however the men were not with it. They were later found in a field of debris about 7 miles away, clinging to a floating lid and cooler from the boat.

According to Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Karow, the Tuesday night call on behalf of the fisherman regarding the faulty generator was key to the search and rescue planning. “Locating the two fishermen was a true team effort between local first responders, good Samaritans and the Coast Guard,” he said. “We are all grateful that the men were able to hold on to the floating debris throughout the long night.”

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Photos courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard