Coast Guard rescues 4 from Cape Cod Bay

3 tried to help another who jumped from boat to swim

No matter how hard Gerry Sabatinelli swam, he could not beat the water. The current held him in place and then pulled him farther away from the boat he was trying to reach.

"Every time you stopped to take a rest, it pulled you like 15, 20 feet backwards," Sabatinelli said. "You got tired, after a while you kind of said, just hang on to the life jackets and just go with it."

He and three others just went with the current for nearly two hours late Thursday morning in Cape Cod Bay near Sandy Neck Beach in Barnstable after they were ripped away from their boat during a swim in 6- to 12-foot deep water.

Sabatinelli, his daughter, and two of her friends were close to hypothermia when the Coast Guard responded by helicopter, lowering a rescue diver to the scene about 2:30 p.m., according to Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Brian Hopkins.

The diver helped pull the three teenagers, ages 17 and 18, into the helicopter, which took them to the Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod. Sabatinelli was then able to swim back to the boat.

"Even though this wasn't tragic, it was enough to make you think twice about jumping into the water," said Hopkins.

Sabatinelli said he and the teens had taken the boat out to squeeze some last-minute fun from a vacation.

About noon, one of the teens jumped into the water to cool off and made it back to the boat only to jump back in, he said. That was when "the current kind of caught him." Sabatinelli jumped in, but had trouble trying to rescue the teen. His daughter and another friend jumped in after him with some floatation devices in tow.

"It just kept going on and on," Sabatinelli said.

The last remaining teen on the vessel could neither swim nor operate the boat, so she called 911.

"I'm just thankful the other one didn't jump off the boat," he said

After more than two hours in the water, Sabatinelli spotted the orange helicopter in the sky, he said. "I knew right away they were looking for us."

His daughter started waving a life ring.

That was when Robert Williams, the rescue diver, was lowered to the greenish water. In a video the Coast Guard took of the rescue, Williams, in a bright red wet suit, fiercely paddles through the sea, cutting through white caps to reach the waterlogged floaters.

"I still had a tough time swimming through the current," said Williams, who was prepared with flippers. A strong current, he said, is "like when you see a reporter standing in the middle of a hurricane . . . that's how it feels.

"I think people underestimate that."

These sorts of rescues are fairly routine during the summer, a time when people leap off their boats for a quick swim only to be surprised by fast-moving water, Williams said.

In this case, the first swimmer did not go in with a floatation device, which Williams said, is a mistake. With a buoy, you can wait for help, he said. Without one, "the current will take you away, and you can't swim forever."

Hopkins flew the helicopter that made the rescue and brought the three teens back to dry land.

"They were tired and cold," Hopkins said. "I think they were just in disbelief that they could jump in the water and be taken away by the current."

Sabatinelli said everybody is doing just fine a couple of days after the rescue.

"I don't think one of them is going to be back on the boat, but it ain't stopping my daughter at all," he said. "I'm all done boating this week. I'm still sore. My chest is tight. My legs are still crampy from treading water. . . . Thank God, we're all alive."