engine, but has no control. the passengers know they re in trouble, but the real danger isn t immediately obvious until, suddenly, it s too late. they re on a collision course with the construction barge that s tied to the bridge. an adult onboard tries to push them away from the barge, but he s no match for the weight of the boat and the power of the current. the bayliner is forced under the steel bow of the barge as passengers jump for their lives, a man tosses this young girl overboard. she s wearing a life jacket, but some of the others aren t. as their boat smashes into the barge, it s crushed and in less than 30 seconds, disappears into the water. it was people screaming for their moms, their dads, screaming for help and just a shriek of a voice. it was just horrible sounding. young and his five-man post guard patrol are coincidently just a few hundred yards away. the prop was barely touching and shooting like a fire hose out of the back end. they rush to the scene and kn
by the time you get home, dinner is practically done. and absolutely delicious. everyone is cooking with new campbell s slow cooker sauces. with people is taking on water and drifting towards disaster. as their dire situation unfolds, a local fisherman captures it all on camera. passengers scream for help as they jump for their lives. april 6th, 1997, ft. lauderdale, florida. a sunday afternoon and a busy day on the intercoastal waterway. 11 people, including three children, ages 7, 9 and 12 are out for a pleasure cruise. they rent this bayliner motor boat, but something goes wrong. a large wake from another vessel has washed over the side and now the partially submerged boat is caught in a 12-mile-an-hour current. the man who is steering guns the
and there s more danger in store. good thing the water s not rough today. within minutes of abandoning ship, the stern starts to shift and rears vertically up and heads towards them. look out, you guys. it s coming this way. the bow was sticking straight up and i said, hey, watch out. you know, the boat is going to come this way. i thought it was going to swamp us. irene is sinking. push the water in, don t do that. we re taking on water, guys. there was a couple of the passengers actually one in particular that she was really getting uneasy. so, we tried, we tried to calm her down. water coming in. guys. we re taking on water. just relax. the pontoons are not going to sink. they ll keep us afloat. then, suddenly, a heroic move that no one expects. grab that igloo. captain john ferrule realizes if he leaves the crowded raft everyone else on board will have a better chance of surviving. to keep as dry as possible, he uses a floating boat bumper to help swim to wh
seconds. some people like this woman seem almost paralyzed with fear. it was heartbreaking to watch this woman and she was terrified and very unstable. took about two or three of the crewmen to actually help her down. but after several hours, most are safely onshore. we were like one of the first boats that got off and it was probably two, three hours after that that the rest of our group got off. they were the very last boat. the classmates and their chaperones reunite on land. we were watching as the boat was sinking. in the beginning when we first got off, we saw it move all over the harbor because all of the currents were dragging it all over the place. by the time we were able to get on the rescue boat back to athens, it was probably around 4:00, 5:00 in the morning and at that point, our ship was completely on its side and it was going down. the ship lies crippled in the night, only hours from plunging
and the diver, man, that guy was quite a swimmer. i mean, he had to swim, you know, 100 yards over to us and then he comes up to the boat and he goes, okay, who wants to be the first one? one by one, the seven on the raft are lifted to safety. bob is second to last. the whole side of that raft was completely deflated by the time i got off. so, our timing couldn t have been better and then looking over at the captain as that boat continued to sink, he was getting to his last rail. the helicopter has reached its weight limit and they have to call a second helicopter to rescue captain john ferule. he s forced to wait another ten long minutes clinging to that last rung above water until he dropped the basket right on top of the boat and john got in and i ll never forget as the helicopter went by, you could clearly see the silhouette of the boat underwater and then as it just continued to sink into the abyss. so, the timing really turned out, i mean, absolutely perfect in a way. n