|
(L to R) BoatUS
Chairman and CEO Kirk La, one of the four Woody Pollack Award winners Capt.
Kyle Potts of TowBoatUS Charlotte Harbor, Florida, and Captain Christina M.
Davidson, US Coast Guard Office of Search and Rescue (credit: BoatUS)
Boat-Towing Captains in
FL, MD, MA, CA Honored For Lifesaving
Acts
When recreational boaters need a tow home, a
battery jump or fuel drop-off, captains from the red TowBoatUS on-the-water towing fleet are there 24-hours a
day to provide routine assistance. When recreational boaters are in grave
trouble, TowBoatUS captains don’t hesitate to act. Ten TowBoatUS captains who
acted as Good Samaritans to save lives in 2017 were recently honored by their
peers at a ceremony held at the annual BoatUS Towing Conference in Jupiter,
Florida, on January 18.
The 10 captains serve TowBoatUS towing
locations in Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts and California. These are their
actions:
Woody Pollack Lifesaving Award
- Capt. Dallas Kyle Potts, Capt. Andres Rosado, Capt. Jerry
Acosta, and Capt. Shane Earhart, TowBoatUS
Charlotte Harbor, Florida: With help from a “sixth sense,” the four captains
rescued two young anglers after their small boat overturned in stormy harbor waters,
nearly drowning the anglers in “washing machine”-like conditions.
Meritorious
Service Awards
- Capt. Dale Plummer, Capt.
Austin Plummer, TowBoatUS Baltimore, Maryland: After an unmanned sailboat
careened ashore with her sails aloft like a ghost ship, the father-and-son team
rescued the vessel’s owner at very last light. The man had been in the water
nearly seven hours.
- Capt. Nathan Lins, TowBoatUS Catalina, California: One simple mistake nearly cost the life of a sailor who, clad only
in board shorts, went overboard while his boat and crew sailed on without him.
Lins quickly searched for and rescued the man.
- Capt. Sawyer Smith, TowBoatUS
Newburyport, Massachusetts: A man fell off a marina dock and unable to swim,
was swept away by a ripping tidal current until Smith dove in to save the man.
- Capt. William ‘Pat’ Davis, TowBoatUS Stuart, Florida: When a father’s 14-year-old son and friend fail to follow procedures while
free diving in open, choppy waters and are swept away from the boat, Davis was
able to locate the boys a mile away and bring them to safety.
- Capt. James Freeman, TowBoatUS Tarpon Springs,
Florida: When a vessel is about to sink, and the only call to go out is to
BoatUS National Dispatch, Freeman responds, sets up a search pattern, and
rescues two crewmembers a mile from the sunken boat.
|
|