On his last day of training, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer saved a man who was thrown from his overturned boat in 20-foot seas off the Oregon coast last week. In a bizarre twist, police say the man had just stolen the boat after leaving a dead fish at the house portrayed in the 1985 Stephen Spielberg movie The Goonies.
The rescue started at 10 a.m. last Friday when the Coast Guard station near Astoria heard a Mayday call on VHF Channel 16. The call did not include any other information, but the Coast Guard was able to determine the caller’s location, about six miles west of the mouth of the Columbia River, using radio tower triangulation.
The Coast Guard immediately launched a 47-foot lifeboat and a Jayhawk helicopter from the Advanced Rescue Helicopter School, both from its Cape Disappointment base. On the helicopter was Aviation Survival Technician 3rd Class John “Branch” Walton, on his last day of training as a rescue swimmer; his class was scheduled to graduate later that day.
The helicopter found the boat, a 35-foot cruiser named Sand Piper, wallowing in 20-foot seas. The crew winched Walton down to the boat, but a breaking wave slammed into it, turning it over and launching a man, the only person on board, into the water.
Walton was able to reach the man, later identified as Jericho Labonte, 35, of Victoria, British Columbia, and the helicopter crew winched them both up to safety. It was Walton’s first real-life rescue. The helicopter flew Labonte back to its Cape Disappointment station and then released him to local medical authorities for treatment for mild hypothermia.
Meanwhile, the owner of the Sand Piper in nearby Warrenton reported that his boat had been stolen. The Coast Guard realized it was the boat from the helicopter rescue. Local police also realized that Labonte was the person that security cameras had recorded leaving the fish at The Goonies house a few days earlier.
By the time police started looking for Labonte, who was wanted on charges of criminal harassment back in Victoria, he had left the medical center. Astoria police subsequently arrested him at a local warming center.
The good news is that Walton made it on schedule to his graduation. Read more at
https://coastguardnews.com/coast-guard-rescues-mariner-as-wave-capsizes-vessel/
and see the Coast Guard video below:
