Monday, August 25, 2008

Coast Guard pair's quick action leads to massive search, rescue of sailor

Coast Guard pair's quick action leads to massive search, rescue of sailor
By Maddie Hanna
Globe Correspondent / August 25, 2008

Most days, Chris Flaherty and Patrick Yetman clean boats at the Green Bay Coast Guard station in Wisconsin and baby-sit the radio, listening for calls of distress that don't often come.

But last Sunday, the 22-year-old best friends from South Boston answered a call that mattered: an empty sailboat adrift in Lake Michigan, the man who had steered it missing for hours.

The report began a rescue process that spanned seven hours, drew seven boats and two helicopters, and sent Flaherty and Yetman onto boats with night-vision goggles as crews cut different search patterns through the dark lake. After hours of circling, searching, and scanning came the second important call of the night, this one from a Coast Guard helicopter: "We have a survivor in the water."
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