The flying frogman
By CURTIS KRUEGER
Published October 27, 2005
The story so far: The Madeira Beach fishing boat Mary Lynn and its crew of three is trapped in Hurricane Katrina as the storm moves up the Gulf of Mexico. The 41-foot boat has lost its steering and is taking on water. On the morning of Saturday, Aug. 27, a Coast Guard helicopter is about to attempt a rescue. fifth of six parts
From the rain-swept deck of the Mary Lynn, Anita Miller stared up at what looked like an orange frogman falling from the sky.
Adrenaline pumped hard inside Petty Officer Kenyon Bolton. This was the kind of rescue he normally only got to hear about.
Bolton, 24, had been a competitive swimmer at high school in Georgia. He went to McGill University in Montreal, dropped out after a couple of years and joined the Coast Guard. He knew from the outset that the job he wanted was swimmer.
Now he swooped over the gulf, descending on a cable attached to a hoist on the helicopter. Bolton swung toward the Mary Lynn, bumped unintentionally into the boat's canopy, and then swung back. Petty Officer Rob Cain, operating the hoist on the helicopter, lowered Bolton into the water.
This was a delicate operation. If Cain let out too much cable as Bolton floated in the turbulent sea, it could sink and tangle, preventing Bolton from rescuing even himself. If Cain gave too little slack, he risked dangling Bolton like a puppet above the water as the sea rose and fell in waves estimated at 20 to 40 feet tall.
To Bolton, bobbing in the sea, the waves looked mountainous. The Mary Lynn would vanish behind one wave, reappear, and vanish again.
A second helicopter had arrived as a backup and was filming the scene.
The Coast Guard crew thought captain Mark Gutek should be the first rescued, because he was injured; a flare had exploded in his hand. Gutek didn't agree; he wanted Anita Miller, his girlfriend, to go first.
Miller jumped off the stern and swam toward Bolton . She wore a life jacket and held a life ring with a rope attached to the Mary Lynn, in case she needed to go back to the boat.
Bolton swam over, put his arms around Miller and clasped his hands tight. The helicopter hovered 50 feet above them. To make sure the Mary Lynn would not smash into the two people in the water, Lt. Craig Massello, the pilot, backed up the helicopter. Bolton and Miller were yanked out of the water, then splashed back in.
"We dunked and dunked and dunked," Miller said. "I mean, we kept going under."
Bolton fitted a harness called a "strop" around Miller. Tightening it, he checked the steel hook that held him to the cable, because it seemed to be out of place.
He had a problem: The gate that normally closes the steel hook had somehow jammed open. The end of the strop, supposed to secure Miller to the hook, had slipped off.
Tossed around by the waves, Bolton managed to reattach it.
Bolton looked up at the helicopter. This was the signal he and Cain had worked out. Normally, Bolton would give a thumbs-up sign but amid this storm he was afraid Cain would not be able to see a thumb.
Cain hoisted Bolton and Miller up to the helicopter.
Bolton swooped down again, this time for Gutek.
Gutek jumped off the Mary Lynn and swam over, holding the same life ring with a rope attached to the boat. As Gutek swam toward him, Bolton was surprised to see he had a briefcase tied to his waist. The pilots had told the Mary Lynn's crew not to bring anything with them, for fear it would get tangled in the cable or in Bolton's gear.
But Gutek's briefcase contained a lifetime of knowledge, the four notebooks where he had written all the coordinates of good catches he had made in the Gulf of Mexico.
"That's my life, man," Gutek explained later. "I don't have nothing but those."
And then just as the Coast Guardsmen feared, the rope got tangled with the cable. The helicopter was now effectively tethered to a boat that was rising and falling with the waves. One big jerk on the cable could yank the helicopter down.
Charles White, the last man on the Mary Lynn, saw what had happened. He and Cain worked together to undo the tangle, White jerking the rope, Cain maneuvering the cable.
Now it was White's turn. He was the least experienced sailor on the Mary Lynn and the prospect of throwing himself into the stormy seas was scary, yet what choice did he have? But before he jumped, he wrapped the rope attached to the life ring around himself several times.
Bolton couldn't use his knife to cut the rope because he was afraid he would slice White as they bobbed in the waves. So he simply unwound the rope, going round and round White, talking to him all the time. White stared into the sky, not saying a thing.
And then they went up.
White had a big smile on his face as he climbed into the helicopter's cabin.
It had taken Massello and his crew an exhausting 81/2 hours to get in place for the rescue, and less than 20 minutes to accomplish it.
"I cannot tell you the sense of relief," Massello said.
Anita Miller went over to the orange frogman who had dropped from the sky to save her. She thanked Kenyon Bolton again and again. And then she kissed him on the side of his head.
FRIDAY: Problems back on land.