DEAL ISLAND, Md. (AP) - Maryland Natural Resources Police say four were rescued after clinging for hours onto a capsized boat off Deal Island.
The boat's owner John Riggs of Salisbury, swam for up to five and half hours wearing a life jacket before he reached the shore around 1 a.m at the house of Carol Wood in Chance.
“To the Light where he capsized has got to be, in my boat its thirty-five to forty minute run so its three or four five miles.”
(Interview with Don Rush)
Don Ford, the Deal Island Chance Volunteer Fire Company Chief, who later went to rescue his family said, “The only thing that he did say is that he swam so long that he didn't think he would make it any farther. And just about that time is when his feet touched the sand on the bottom. And he was able to walk ashore.”
Rescue
The five people including Riggs’ sister, two children and his father were on a fishing trip when the boat capsized during a storm.
After Riggs swam away, the four boaters clung to the 16-foot Carolina Skiff motorboat about five hours before help arrived.
Searchers from the U.S. Coast Guard and local fire departments and police found the boaters off the Chesapeake Bay near Deal Island in far western Somerset County near the mouth of the Wicomico River. Firefighters brought the boaters to shore.
Authorities say the boaters' life jackets saved them.
Riggs said, “To me is much more than a hero because he swam three or four hours to save his family.”
