ft. lauderdale, florida. a sunday afternoon and a busy day on the intercoastal waterway. 11 people, including 3 children, ages 7, 9 and 12, are out for a pleasure cruise. they rent this bayliner motorboat, 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 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 a construction barge that s tied to the bridge. an adult on board 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.
immediately notice a hole. oh, yeah there is. that feels like there s a hole? yeah. that s what it feels like. like we had the plug out of the raft. so at that point i knew, you know, now our time is limited. tensions are rising and so is the 40 degree water inside the raft. hypothermia is a grave concern, and there s more danger in store. good thing the water s not rough today. within minutes of abandoning ship, its stern starts to sink and the ship rears vertically up and heads toward 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
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! fruitless efforts are made to contact the operator of the tugboat towing this empty steel barge riding high in the water. i couldn t believe that we were about to die. i couldn t believe it was happening. it just didn t seem any way possible to survive something as tall as a three-story building just mowing us over out on the middle of a river. only a few minutes go by before kevin, his daughter, ruby, and everyone else on board realize the inevitable. we started grabbing for life preservers and such chaos on there. and, you know, my poor little daughter didn t have any idea what to do. so i did as best i could to get us to where we could at least have a chance. and i look up and i see the first mate already jumped off the boat, and he s already swimming for it. i m like, oh, my gosh. kevin and ruby don t have time to put on a life jacket.
to see the city from a different vantage point get on board the ride the ducks duck boat. tourists, like kevin grace and his 9-year-old daughter, ruby. my daughter and i were taking a daughter/daddy trip, and part of the trip brought us through philadelphia. they decide to take a ride on the duck boat. it was a novel experience for both of us. are you having a good time, gang? this commercial for ride the ducks shows everyone on board enjoying the tour from the streets to the river on what is typically a carefree and exciting experience. but on july 7, 2010, at about 2:30 in the afternoon, this footage shows the duck boat sitting in the delaware river in the middle of an active shipping channel after problems with the boat s engine. the smell i was smelling when we first got in the river was kind of getting stronger.
one of the diesels apparently sheared a shaft, and we re taking on water. along with an electrical problem, we lost the radio for communication. to make matters worse, the gps is shot, and there s no chance of using the ship s radio to call for help. filling up the zodiac right now with some air. we re all going to pile in here. this is really unbelievable. can you hear me? hello? bob calmly narrates the scene as emergency preparations are executed. meanwhile, his brother, john, is trying to make a distress call from his cell phone. he climbs high on the boat, but reception is still bad. we re sinking. we re taking on water. we re out on a vessel. seven miles south of flat island. seven miles south of flat island. we need something now. you got that? we knew this thing was not going to stop leaking. i mean, it was going down.