Washington State Ferry crews were very busy over the July 4th weekend but as the holiday was winding down Monday night, two crews who were aboard the Kittitas and Cathlamet ferries, were forced to spring into action to pluck two people out of the waters off Puget Sound after they reported a mishap with their boat.
Jim O’Neill was on lookout duty and in the pilot house of the ferry Kittitas during its 10:10 pm run from Vashon Island to Fauntleroy, when he spotted something in the water.
"You could see a silhouette and all of sudden, you just see like it was a log on the water," said O’Neill, a seaman for more than seven years with the ferry system. "And then stuff appearing in the water like they went in."
O’Neill called it out, then raced from his lookout position in the pilot house, to meet his dock partner, John Jakobsen, at the rescue boat to be lowered down to the water to start their search.
“We have a little search light so we turn on, but I could see a massive stuff in the water everywhere like how many people are in the water,” O’Neill said.
“We found two people, their canoe filled with water, and they were on like a boogie board type thing sitting on it,” said Jakobsen, who has been a seaman for 15 years.
’Neill said the couple who were in distress are in their 40s and seemed perfectly calm during the ordeal.
O’Neill and Jakobsen got the woman and man into their rescue boat, while another rescue crew, launched from the Cathlamet ferry, sitting at the dock, raced over to collect the board and canoe from the water.
O’Neill said they checked to make sure the couple wasn’t hypothermic and cognitively aware of the situation.
“She was concerned about her kids she had over on Blake Island,” O’Neill said.
O’Neill said they worked to get word to a park ranger of other official over on Blake Island and delivered the couple to the Vashon Island ferry dock, where they climbed up a ladder, with the help of crew members on land.
“We train for this every week all the time to get ready,” Jakobsen said.
All state ferry workers train to fight fires, rescue people from the water and what to do if they have to abandon ship, should there be a catastrophe on board.
“These are highly trained merchant marines, they're not just telling you were to park your car,” said Ian Sterling, spokesperson for Washington State Ferries.
“Not all of these, end the way we like so it’s always nice to have a successful rescue.”