By David Goodhue
Miami Herald
MONROE COUNTY, Fla. — A Monroe County deputy’s body camera footage detailed his heroic efforts, and those of firefighters, to save three severely injured people, including a child screaming in pain, from a sinking boat moments after it slammed into a Florida Keys bridge early Monday morning.
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The footage also shows a tow boat arrive moments later to remove the most seriously wounded before the Sea Hunter center console goes beneath the surface of the fast-moving currents of South Pine Channel around 2 a.m.
“I got my T-top under his T-top to stop the boat from rolling over. We got there just in time,” Kevin Freeston, owner of TowBoat US Big Pine Key and Cudjoe, told the Miami Herald. “The current was smoking through the channel and was pushing us against the bridge.”
But, in the minutes before Freestone arrived, Deputy Jesus Rojas-Burgos, other deputies and several Monroe County Fire Rescue paramedics were frantically trying to get the people off the boat and onto the bridge, which connects Little Torch Key to Big Pine Key.
Rojas-Burgos and the firefighters first had to find a hole in a fence on the side of the road to access the bridge, which is actually the old South Pine Channel Bridge that runs parallel to the current span. From there, they had to figure out how to get personnel and equipment down to the injured.
“We have to be prepared in a moment’s notice to react to situations like this,” Rojas-Burgos’ boss, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay, told the Herald. “Things happen in a half second, and you have to be cool, calm and collected, and obviously, as this video shows, he was.”
One of the injured was a 12-year-old boy with multiple leg fractures. There was a woman who was also seriously injured. And, the captain of the boat, whom police haven’t named, was lying on the bow half submerged while a firefighter tried to keep his leg from severing below the knee. In all, there were eight people on the boat who investigators have not named.
The Herald is not showing the video because it is too graphic.
When first responders arrived, their only choice to get the people off the boat was to lower a metal roof ladder from the bridge to the top of the unsteady vessel about 15 feet below. Rojas-Burgos and the firefighters were evaluating the injured as the boat was listing to its side.
“LT! This is going down. We need life jackets,” one of the firefighters yelled to his lieutenant on the bridge.
The boy, meanwhile, was screaming in agony throughout the video because of the extent of his injuries. Moving him by ladder was proving difficult — and extremely painful to him. Firefighters tried using a rope harness, but, he was in too much pain. The medics were also trying to keep him calm while trying to save him.
“I know it hurts bro, but we have to be able to move you. It’s going to hurt, bro. I’m really sorry about that, but, we have to be able to move you,” a firefighter told the boy. “So, we need you to be calm as can be. Be tough for us!”
As it became clearer getting the injured up to the old concrete bridge’s deck was improbable, the firefighters on the vessel began yelling for a boat. Their colleagues on the bridge had already called Freestone.
“We got a boat coming in five minutes,” the firefighters on the bridge said. The reply from those on the sinking vessel: “We don’t have five minutes!”
When Freestone arrived and pulled his 26-foot Sea Cat beside the sinking craft, a paramedic was treating the injured captain. He and his colleagues embarked on the difficult task of trying to get a backboard underneath him while keeping his leg intact.
“We need to get him up,” the medic says. “I’m holding him to prevent him from going in the water right now.”
Firefighters eventually offloaded the boy, the woman and finally the captain onto Freestone’s vessel.
He rushed them to the Dolphin Marina on Little Torch Key, where ambulances were waiting. From there, paramedics flew them aboard Monroe County’s helicopter ambulance to Miami-Dade hospitals. Their conditions as of Tuesday were not immediately available.
Some of the other less seriously injured were taken to the Lower Keys Medical Center for treatment.
Freestone, 57, has been operating TowBoat US out of the Lower Keys for 23 years. Although Monroe County is served by police officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission , as well as county deputies who conduct marine patrols, his services are often needed during water emergencies.
“We’re pretty active. We’re in between two Coast Guard stations. If we’re able to help out with emergencies, we’re more than willing to get out there,” Freestone said. “We have four boats that operate 24 hours, seven days a week. Sometimes, you end up in a situation like that.”
The crash is under investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which has not immediately answered the Herald’s queries about the investigation.
Kristen Livengood, a Monroe County Fire Rescue spokeswoman, on Monday said the twin-engine boat hit the bridge “at a high rate of speed.” Authorities did not release the size of the boat.
The boat that crashed runs charter fishing trips in the Keys. However, Ramsay said the U.S. Coast Guard and Fish and Wildlife investigators are still trying to determine if the people on board that day were customers, or if it was a private trip.
The Herald on Tuesday called the charter company, Nauti Tails, and the woman who answered hung up the phone when the reporter identified himself.
Monroe County State Attorney Dennis Ward told the Herald that investigators were unable to draw blood to test the Sea Hunter’s operator for alcohol because he needed immediate medical attention. However, Ward said police will collect a sample of his blood from the hospital.
“It’s all part of the investigation,” Ward said.
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