The crew of Crowley Maritime’s tugboat Guard recently performed
a rescue of a man who was struggling to stay afloat in the waters outside of
San Francisco Bay, the company revealed Nov. 12.
The rescue took place during the early morning hours of
Wed., Oct. 31, while the tugboat was standing by outside the Golden Gate
Bridge, waiting to escort a tanker into San Francisco Bay’s anchorage. Perry
Overton, captain of the Guard, noticed the man treading water a little more
than a mile and a half from the bridge. The crew tossed the man a life ring and
Crowley Chief Engineer Keith Madding donned a survival suit and entered the 55-degree
waters to help the fatigued man climb the Guard’s emergency ladder. Once
aboard, the crew removed the hypothermic man’s wet clothing and wrapped him in
warm blankets until the Coast Guard arrived and could perform other life-saving
treatments.
Following the rescue, the Guard resumed escort duties on the
tanker, bringing it to its destination as scheduled.
“In the 20-plus years of my career, I have never seen such a
professional rescue by non-professional-rescuers,” Ranger Shannon Jay of the
National Park Service at Golden Gate National Parks, who is assisting the San
Francisco Police Department in the investigation of this incident, said of the
Crowley crew. “They are true heroes.”
The Guard’s crew has been nominated by
the National Park Service for a Citizen’s Award for Bravery, which is an honor
awarded by the secretary of the interior in Washington DC.
“On behalf of everyone here at Crowley, I want to
congratulate this brave crew for putting their training to good use to perform
the vital measures needed to save this man’s life,” Rocky Smith, a Crowley senior
vice president and general manager, said. “These crewmembers are true heroes
and deserve to be recognized for their service.”
The crew aboard the Guard is trained to respond to a
variety of incidents through the Crowley Safety Program, a custom training event
designed exclusively for mariners that provides training in cold-water survival
tactics, shipboard fire fighting, medical incidents and other relevant topics.
