A Coast Guard swimmer saved a man’s life after a wave came crashing down on his boat. Video captured the heart-stopping moment the wave tossed the yacht upside down with the pilot still on board. Luckily, the rescue swimmer had arrived in the nick of time to catch the submerged man.
The Coast Guard agency received a mayday call from a man caught in stormy conditions at the mouth of the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington.
The agency was able to determine roughly where the call was coming from, and Coast Guard crews on vessels and in a helicopter who happened to be training nearby responded.
They found the 35-feet (11-meter) yacht, the P/C Sandpiper, taking on water in 20-foot (6-meter) seas — meaning the height of a wave from the previous trough could be as much as 40 feet (12 meters), Petty Officer Michael Clark said.
A rescue swimmer was deployed as the conditions were deemed too dangerous for a boat.
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The swimmer’s name was not immediately released, nor was that of the man who was rescued.
He was flown back to Coast Guard Base Astoria where emergency services personnel were waiting to evaluate and treat the man.
“All in all, it’s just another day for the Coast Guard men and women who spend their days,” USCGPacificNorthwest tweeted.
The Columbia Bar, the largest North American river that flows into the Pacific Ocean, is known as the “Graveyard of the Pacific”.
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It is known as one of the most dangerous bar crossings – the entrance of a river into the ocean – in the world.
Conditions on the bar are extremely dynamic and can change hourly with the ability to generate huge waves
The interplay of tidal flux, ocean breakers, offshore winds, and river current makes the bar crossing extremely perilous.
