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SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLERA family describes how a fun day of boating turned into a terrifying night in Tampa Bay.
TAMPA - By the time a paramedic reached Sandra Wardino and her two young children Sunday night in the choppy waters of Tampa Bay, the family members had been clinging to their capsized boat - and to each other - for three dark and desperate hours.
They were cold and terrified. Their bodies ached from treading the rough water. Their throats were like sandpaper from screaming for help.
So when Tampa Fire Rescue paramedic Mark Bogush swam out to Sandra Wardino shortly before 9 p.m. and told her to let go of her 6-year-old son, Kerry II, and her 4-year-old daughter, Natalie, she refused at first.
She had held on to them for so long, she wasn't going to let go of them now.
"She had a death grip on them," Bogush said. "We had to have a conversation for a few minutes where I calmed her down and convinced her it was going to be okay."
In the end, it all turned out okay for the Wardino family, including Sandra's husband, Kerry Wardino, and their daughter Bobbie Jo Lucas, 22. But as they stood outside their Seminole Heights home Monday afternoon, hanging on to each other just as they had about 24 hours earlier, it was clear the Wardino family hadn't shaken the scary uncertainty of those few hours.
Kerry Wardino fought back tears as he recalled the unexpected waves that overtook the family's 15-foot boat near Picnic Island at dusk Sunday.
He wept when he recalled the question his daughter Natalie posed over and over again: "Daddy, are you going to get us out of here?"
"I told her, "Yes, baby, we're going to get out of here,' " said Wardino, 36, a tow truck driver for Larsen's Towing.
As the Wardinos spoke to reporters, their battered boat lay in the front yard, the outboard engine in pieces on the floor of the vessel.
The weather was gorgeous Sunday, so the Wardinos packed a picnic and went out to enjoy the boat they had bought a year ago.
Usually, they travel around Davis and Harbour islands, but this time - only the second time ever - they ventured out into Tampa Bay.
They had seven life vests inside the boat. Kerry Jr. and Natalie wore two of them as the family left Beer Can Island near Apollo Beach before the sun went down, their father said.
Heading home shortly before 6 p.m., the Wardinos noticed that the water was rougher than it had been. Near Picnic Island in Tampa Bay, the boat took on water.
Kerry Wardino scrambled for the rest of the life vests, but just as he, his wife and Lucas started to put them on, the boat went under.
The Wardinos held on to the bow of the boat as the current carried them north toward the Gandy Bridge. Minutes turned to hours. Before long, their bodies grew cold in the 75-degree water. When they got under the Gandy Bridge, Lucas wrapped rope from the boat around her ankle and swam toward a piling. The rope slipped off, separating her from her parents and siblings.
Paul Sloan, a 43-year-old fisherman from New York, was on the bridge above and heard Lucas' screams. He found someone with a cell phone and put in a call to 911.
But before rescuers arrived, Sloan saw a wave pull Lucas under the water. He jumped in to help her but got caught in the current.
By then, Tampa police Officer Richard Basioli, 33, had arrived. He jumped from the Gandy Bridge to help Sloan and Lucas.
Meanwhile, rescuers from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the Tampa and St. Petersburg fire departments pulled Kerry Wardino, his wife and youngest children to safety.
By 9:30 p.m., Sloan and every member of the Wardino family were out of the water. They went to Tampa General Hospital briefly and were released.
Sandra Wardino said she lost her purse in the water - and the family's nearly $700 mortgage payment inside it.
But as far as the Wardinos are concerned, they can reach out and grab all they need: each other.
"We're just glad we're here," Kerry Wardino said.