Responding to a Capsized Boat with the U.S. Coast Guard - Smarter Every Day 277

Hey, it's me, Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day! Today, on Smarter Every Day, we're going to continue our deep dive with the US Coast Guard, and we're going to see how they accomplish their mission of saving people in peril and protecting the nation from maritime threats.

In previous videos, we've learned about command centers and the command structures, and we've learned about search patterns and the RBM, the Response Boat Medium, with its fascinating control system and remarkable maneuverability. There's still a ton to cover with this series of videos. And today, we're going to spend a Memorial Day weekend with a Coast Guard station in Destin, Florida, and see how the Coasties go about keeping the boating public safe on one of the busiest boating days of the year, particularly at a place called Crab Island.

If you've ever been to Destin, Florida, you have heard about Crab Island. It's a barely submerged intercoastal island where the masses love to come and hang out together. So today, let's go visit the Coast Guard station in Destin, Florida, and get Smarter Every Day.

(Guitar riff, sounds of winching, wind, and waves)

So how do Coast Guard stations actually work? We know the boats are there, and that's the part that does the people-saving. So, are they more like a fire station where they're waiting on things to happen, or is it more like a police station where they're going on patrols? If you've ever been to Destin, Florida, you've heard about Crab Island... Again, it's known as the local party spot. But what I didn't know is that right beside Crab Island is Coast Guard station Destin.

I pulled into the station and met BM-1, Seth Pritt, who introduced me to the man in charge, Senior Chief Corey Palmer.

"I'm Destin."

"Senior Chief Corey Palmer. Good to meet you. Pleasure."

It was pretty early in the morning, so we just had a few moments to show me around the station before the team on duty was gathering for the risk assessment meeting for the day.

"So this first building I kind of walked into is our administration building. Mm-hmm. And then over here, we have our communications room."

"Hey, I'm Destin."

"Sean, so we have a computer program that picks up. We're working on four different towers here. Channel 16, international hailing and distress. And then these two are Coast Guard channels. So this is how we talk to our boats while they're underway."

"Destin—so this is the international hailing and distress..."

"Yep. These are Coast Guard?"

"Sean—these two are Coast Guard. And then this is for more detailed marine information."

"Oh, really... So you can switch to two-two alpha. That's a Coast Guard working frequency. We got some flippers here."

"Yeah, that's awesome."

(laughter)

"Yeah, they're the real deal. Yeah, they tend to break less often. And this is the—I learned not to call this a map. This is the chart, right?"

"Yep, that's correct. That's our chart there, one of the charts we use. So this here, which is kind of our general—we call it like a bullpen or something, but just general office space for the folks who come in. They need to get on a computer; they can hop in here. Back there, that's our operations. Petty Officer, BM-1 Seth Pritt here."

"You get it done, right?"

"Yes, that's right. He's probably the busiest guy—busiest guy at the station, I'd say. Awesome. And then back behind you, we've got our armory. And just this is the—oh, this is the armory. Quarters, the downstairs garage, which serves as the headquarters for all the maintenance they do on their boats."

He also walked me out to the boathouse where they pull the boats in and work on them. At that time, it was being used as a temporary gym while they remodeled the permanent one.

"So we have four Coast Guard boats that are here. The rest of these boats are our partners in the area that we all kind of work together to get the job done."

Senior Chief Palmer then showed me the three boats they used, the big one being the 45-foot response boat medium, and the other two boats are the 29-foot response boat small and the 24-foot special purpose craft shallow water, which we'll be out on later.

We headed back to the station for a GAR or general assessment of risk, where the team meets and goes over the various risk factors they're facing for their mission today. It’s a really interesting, collaborative effort to establish what they should be looking out for in terms of risk.

After this, the senior chief filled me in a little bit more on this whole Crab Island phenomenon.

"All right, Senior Chief, I have set up a camera here, and Crab Island is starting to bake off. How does it go down? Like they're standing up out there, right?"

"Yeah. So most of that—people are standing there. It's pretty shallow. They can just kind of stand next to their boat, hang out, enjoy themselves. But as the day progresses, so many boats will be on there that you're not able to get to—you'll be right on the edge where the deep spot is. And that's where the current will be kind of pushing through there as the tide changes, and it can be pushing as much as three or four knots."

"What's the most common injury out there?"

"It's hard to say. There's really a wide range of stuff that can happen, but some of the more severe ones are drowning."

"That happens here?"

"Yeah."

"You think it'll happen today?"

"I hope not. I really hope not."

"That's terrifying."

"Where some people come to visit there, they're not necessarily a swimmer; they don't know how to swim. They kind of get that false sense of reassurance like, 'Hey, we're just going to be in three feet of water. You can just be standing the whole time.' As the day goes on, they work their way closer to that deeper drop-off at the edge of the sandbar, and the current gets them, and then they start quickly drifting away. And that's when they get in trouble."

"Oh, man, that's awful."

So, Senior Chief wasn't exaggerating. As you can see in this time lapse over the course of the day, Crab Island kind of builds up and gets crazier and crazier. A little later in the day, we loaded up in the 24-foot special purpose craft and headed out on patrol.

"All right. So what are we about to do?"

"Pretty much, we're doing recreational boating safety patrol. So we're going out looking for anyone that is doing anything that is not safe—looking for BUIs, anything you know that may be not legal. We're making sure everyone's safe. We're going to check safety gear, make sure everyone's good to drive their boats today."

"So like if I don't have a mustache, can I still hang out with you guys, or what?"

"Well, I don't have one, so..."

"I notice the guy doesn’t have the mustache is the one that has to drive. So you guys just sit around, look cool on the deck."

"Well, he... he barely has one."

(Agreeing)

"I barely have one. I count it. It's better than I can grow. It's all a facade."

"Safety is the priority every time I get underway for any evolution. You know, if we see something that looks like that's not right, you know, we'll stop the boat... potentially run some field sobriety tests if it comes down to that."

"So what on earth is that!?"

"Those are the uh... tiki boats. They're just some floating on some pallets that had a 60 horsepower engine on the back. And they just scoot around... You can book 'em out..."

"So I think it's BYOB."

"Destin—and you've got a captain that drives you around all day."

"And the captain's sober the whole time...?"

"And they just do their thing...?"

"Yep..."

"Destin - That is bizarre."

"It's.... BRILLIANT." (Destin laughing heavily)

"Destin - It's really smart, huh? That's great."

Very quickly, as we got out to Crab Island, it became very apparent that there were a lot of inexperienced people operating boats in close quarters, which wasn't necessarily the safest thing. Within a few minutes, we had helped somebody whose rented jet ski wasn't working, or they didn't know how to operate it. I saw the anchor line of one boat get caught around the anchor of a big yacht despite the mustaches for the two guys on the front of the boat.

This is not the TV show "Cops." So I want to make a couple of points. I recorded things from that patrol boat that I don't want to put on the internet, and it's because people were out there enjoying time with their families in different states of mental awareness because of choices they had made. It's not a great look for a lot of people, and I want to respect people's privacy, so I'm not going to put that out there.

But I will tell you this: I learned things I didn't know. For example, I didn't know the Coast Guard can just board your vessel, and they can inspect everything you have on board to make sure you have the proper safety equipment—the stuff required by law like fire extinguishers, flotation devices. I had no idea that they can board whether you want them to or not.

One thing I just want to make abundantly clear: if you're going to be in control of a vessel on the water, it's in everybody's best interest, ESPECIALLY yours—just DON'T consume alcohol. Just don't do it.

A little later on, we were doing a boarding out on the outer edges of Crab Island, and then things got serious. There was a report that a woman out in Crab Island didn't have a pulse.

(Radio voice)

"Come over here, 1018 on the East Side of Crab Island, there's a subject on a boat up in the middle of Crab Island that apparently didn't have a pulse and isn't breathing."

(Yelling on boat)

"Hey, DROP IT! DROP IT! DROP IT!"

(Siren)

(Siren)

Back at the station.

(Siren)

The paramedics were called. Some of the local law enforcement officers had jet skis, and they could get out into the center of Crab Island. When they got to her, suddenly she had revived on her own and she had refused medical attention. So, it was kind of an odd but a good outcome at the end of the day.

Some folks on a boat got our attention and pointed out another boat that was in distress. It ended up that some ladies had rented a pontoon boat, and it had gotten pushed by the current against the bridge, and they were pinned there. So we went over to help them get free and get them back underway. And afterwards, Maichachi, who's a mechanic, made sure that there was no damage to their engine and that they could operate properly.

Back at the station, my buddy George was filming in the comms room when an important call came in.

(Radio voice)

"This is Adeline.... I've got a capsized vessel with...(Break)...(Radio noise)... (Radio) eight people in the water. I'm fixin' to pick 'em up. You wanna know my position? (Radio break)*

(Authoritative voice)

"Vessel hailing Coast Guard station Destin, what is your location?"

(Radio static)

"30 degrees, 20, 95, 86 degrees and 30, 113."

(Radio static)

"Captain, this Coast Guard station Destin. Roger, can you confirm you (BM1 Pritt through Radio) have all the personnel out of the water?"

"Over CAST OFF!"

So, as that was happening, we could hear the radio calls going back and forth and quickly got ready to head that way.

(Radio chatter)

"Accounted for. All personnel. They're still in the water. You are working at this moment to get them on your vessel, 9-2-5."

(Concentrating)

(Other Coasty repeats)

"9-2-5, ok... Two miles south of the pass."

(Engines roaring, siren)

"You're gonna want to hang on, Destin!"

(Engines roaring, siren)

"Yes Sir!"

*(Engines roaring, siren) *

We took off out to sea. And I quickly began to appreciate why they usually use the larger response boat medium when they head out of the harbor, out into the ocean. It was a heck of a ride. And even with the built-in shock absorption, man!! It was.... ...It was a LOT!

(Destin laughing, but clearly concerned)

(Lots of pounding, spray, and noise)

We heard over the radio that everyone was safely retrieved from the water by the captain of the Adeline. So, I cannot imagine how stressful this ride would have been out to the sinking vessel, knowing that people might have been in danger. It would have been a very different mood.

"Destin - How far out are we going?"

"Justin (screaming over pounding) - Two more miles!"

"Destin in disbelief - TWO more miles?"

"Yeah!"

"Destin - Holy Heck.... Holy... cra....aaapp."

It was a very long two miles. And thankfully when we got there, the captain of the Adeline was headed back in with all eight boaters on board.

"So this boat just flipped. I had sunglasses somewhere. This boat just capsized. Eight people were on it. A good Samaritan picked them up. And so what are you guys doing now?"

"We're just picking up debris. We're going to stay in the location for a little while just to make sure we don't hear anything—maybe someone trapped in the hull or something. We can hear them, but we're pretty sure we heard from the source that there were eight people in, eight people out. Everyone's accounted for. So we're just picking up debris at this point."

"Destin - Some dude wants these shoes, man. Those are... where's the other one?"

(Engine noises)

"It's over there."

"Destin - How fun would it be to take a guy his shoes back? Just to bring it back like, 'Hey, thanks for paying your taxes. Hey, you forgot your shoes... they were on your boat, that you also forgot.' For goodness sakes, go. You want me to get his others? How crazy would it be to get his other shoe? It's right there! Shoe! Shoe Number two! Oh, it's good! You got it. There's the other one right there, Joseph."

(Waves pounding on boat)

"Destin - All right, so a boat sank. They're trying to get the numbers off of it. There were eight souls aboard. They made it in. That's good. Nobody's hurt. Right now they're thinking about the environmental issues, such as oil on the water, stuff like that. So right now they're trying to get the registration number off of the boat. A salvage company was contacted to come refloat the boat, and we made our way back to station Destin and tied up. But the funny thing about getting the shoes and the hat is we actually got to give the captain those things back, and I'll show you that in just a minute.

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"My daughter-in-law, she's five months pregnant. Thank God that cooler was there and I got her rough on the boat."

"Destin - Oh, there's your shoes, man! Those are Josh's shoes. Marsha's hat—she's gonna love it, man. That's cool. Aw, this is too funny."

"Destin- So is that your boat?"

"Yeah, it's mine...man."

"Destin- What happened?"

"We're just out there on anchor fishing... and the waves... the lines are just going and going. I was like, you know what, man? Screw this, it's starting to come over to the back, you know, with the waves breaking over the back. And I'm like, you know what? So all of a sudden, the boat just automatically... you could feel it just start dropping. And I said, 'Hey... is that pump?' And he said, 'Yeah! It's pumping!' All I know, man, it just starts like this, and I'm just like this, and it just literally...."

"Destin - It just went.... Was it scary?"

"Yeah. There wasn't much time to think about it... I rolled with the boat and then I just hung onto it."

"Destin - And you guys were able to get out, get the life jackets and all that?"

"No! I couldn't. Okay. That's just that's a stupid thing about it. You couldn't get the life jacket out quick enough as fast as the boat went down. No, I'm a former 82nd Airborne, so I've jumped out of perfectly good airplanes. I'm not afraid of anything. But when that went over, the first thing was my daughter-in-law with my grandson... you know, carrying my grandson and my son that was.... And I got all mentally exhausted because I’m looking around, trying to find her."

"We're trying to stay..."

"Destin - And y'all were treading water?"

"Yeah."

I'm grateful that this man and his whole family, including his grandson, who's now been born, made it through this experience. And I'm grateful that a Good Samaritan on the Adeline was out there and able to get to him so fast. It's a good day for the Coast Guard when all they have to do is manage the cleanup on a bad situation, and no one is missing or lost. But I'm grateful for these men and women who were there waiting and ready for the call.

A huge thank you to YOU for checking out the Deep Dive series here on Smarter Every Day with the Coast Guard. Got more videos comin'! Please consider subscribing if you want to check that out. Also, a huge thank you to everybody that supports on Patreon. I have a surprise coming up soon for patrons, so if you want to check that out, Patreon dot com slash smarter every day. That's it! I'm Destin. I'm grateful for you. You're getting Smarter Every Day. Have a good one. Bye.