Hurricane Milton created a nightmare for anyone in the Gulf of Mexico.
One Florida man found himself in the worst situation of his life.
And a Coast Guard crew rescued a man in this hair-raising situation after the hurricane.
Man clings to a cooler in the Gulf of Mexico hoping for a miracle
Hurricane Milton became the second storm to slam into Florida’s Gulf Coast in nearly two weeks after Hurricane Helene.
One Florida man survived the worst-case scenario in the Gulf of Mexico during Milton.
A fishing boat named Captain Dave broke down about 20 miles offshore in the Gulf near Sarasota, Florida.
Milton was a Category 5 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico heading for Florida.
The boat’s captain wanted to repair the ship before the hurricane hit.
Someone made radio contact with the captain who reported that the Captain Dave was disabled from a problem with the rudder that he could not fix.
Hurricane Milton was moving dangerously close to him when the Coast Guard gave him tough news about his situation.
“The captain was instructed by the Coast Guard to don a life jacket and stay with the vessel’s emergency position indicating radio beacon,” the Coast Guard stated.
The last anyone heard from the captain was three hours before Milton made landfall.
He rode out the hurricane in the open water clinging to a cooler with his lifejacket and a radio beacon.
Coast Guard makes a dramatic rescue attempt
A Coast Guard helicopter crew set out to search for the captain in the Gulf after Hurricane Milton subsided.
They had no idea if the captain had survived the storm when they set out.
“It’s a lot of math that determines where we’re gonna go and search because we have limited resources, limited fuel,” Coast Guard Lieutenant Ian Logan said.
Logan said his crew was ready to turn back empty-handed when they got something on their signals.
“As we were turning to fly back, we started honing in on getting the signal, a stronger signal,” Coast Guard Lieutenant Landon Klopfenstein said.
“We do a lot of searches for people in the water,” Klopfenstein added. “So, to get to have a success story like this is not as common as we’d like it. And we were all very, very excited. We couldn’t believe it, honestly, that he was OK.”
One of the Coast Guard rescue swimmers noticed something in the water.
“We thought it might’ve been a buoy,” Logan said. “I remember looking down and seeing the strobe and like seeing him holding on to the cooler. So, once we pulled up in that 50-foot hover right next to the guy, we’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s on like a cooler that’s opened up and he’s just floating on it,’ which is insane.”
The captain was hanging on for dear life in the cooler.
“I didn’t believe it at first. There are a lot of questions going through my head. So I paused for like 10 seconds, as we’re making this turn, going to make our approach to the water,” Logan said. “And I’m like, ‘Are you sure?’ And the swimmer is like, ‘Yes, he’s waving his hands at us like, this is the guy.’ And I remember all of us are like, ‘My goodness, I can’t believe we’re so excited that we found this guy.’ Like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
#Breaking An @USCG Air Station Miami 65 helicopter crew rescued a man clinging to a cooler approximately 30 mi. off Longboat Key.
The man was taken to Tampa General Hospital for medical care.
Sector St. Pete lost communications w/ the man at approx. 6:45 p.m., Wed. #SAR pic.twitter.com/64wSHuRAeH
— USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) October 10, 2024
The Coast Guard crew could not believe their luck in finding the captain and that he survived a hurricane in open water.
“I look back over my shoulder and he’s over my back right shoulder and I see this guy — hair looks like the ‘Castaway’ movie, where he’s covered in salt,” Logan recalled. “He’s got a life vest on, he’s soaked. And at that point, it really set in, like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe we just found this guy.'”
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this story.
