HOLLYWOOD, FLA. (WSVN) - A day out fishing for a group of men turned frightening when their boat capsized. They say they feared for their lives, but nearby boaters came to their rescue.
Three men on the boat said that it took about three minutes once the water started coming aboard, which almost caused the boat to be completely submerged.
They do not know what would have happened if the one fishing boat nearby didn’t come to save them.
“I saw my life going, but I was tired, I couldn’t do anything else,” Justin Peck said.
Cameras captured Peck on the capsized boat exhausted.
He and his friends spend the day fishing Monday afternoon when their boat began to take on water about a mile off Fort Lauderdale.
“I was trying to bail the water out of the boat with a bucket, and then the bucket came out of the boat, and I jumped out of the boat to get the bucket because we were going to sink without the bucket,” Peck said.
The boat ended up flipping and the trio was unable to grab their radio or flairs.
They struggled to stay on to the boat’s haul in order to get someone’s attention.
“I mean this boat had about this much left in the water,” Peck said.
“We were yelling, yelling, yelling, yelling and screaming,” said one of the men.
Their efforts to get attention worked.
Dominic Miller, first mate of the 65-foot Lois Ann, with Lady Pamela’s Sports Fishing Charters in Hollywood, spotted the men.
“We didn’t know what it was, we saw a small boat, and then Dominic’s young eyes, determined that it was a boat in distress, ” said Mitchell Scherfer, a fishing boat captain.
“I thought these guys were just waiving at us, you know, ‘Get out of our spot,'” Miller said. “I realized there was something different. They’re in distress.”
Then the Lois Ann moved closer.
The crew tossed life preservers so that the tired man could climb aboard.
At the end of the day, the men realized what could have happened if no one saw or heard them.
“Like I said, for 10 to 15 minutes, I’m screaming my life, my head off,” Peck said,
The capsized boat was eventually recovered and was brought to Fort Lauderdale.
“We’re blessed that we were able to be out in the area,” Scherfer said.
“Thank God, thank God those people saw us is all I can say,” Peck said.
The people with Lady Pamela’s Sports Fishing Charters said they were people on the fishing boat, and they were only halfway through their excursion.
When they saw those three survivors, the trio came on board and insisted that everyone on the fishing board should continue with their excursion.
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