THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 8, 1995 TAG: 9503070292
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Remember those five men caught in a mid-Atlantic storm Jan. 24 when a Coast Guard swimmer, who had already rescued three of them, was unable to get back to his helicopter?
He spent five hours in the dark water, dodging death himself.
Well, there's another chapter. And it's raising questions about when the Coast Guard should attempt a rescue at all.
The boat never sank.
The 42-year-old captain, Allen Brugger, who had radioed the distress, refused to leave the vessel and has since arrived at St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The Coast Guard told Brugger that stormy night, after learning he didn't want to be rescued, that it would be safer to leave the rest of the crew aboard as well rather than risk dangerous helicopter hoists.
But one crew member made the decision for them by flinging himself into the water and swimming toward the hovering helicopter.
The rescue was on.
There was never a doubt in the mind of 38-year-old Mark Cole that his life was in danger. The crew member's voice still cracks when he talks of that night.
In a recent telephone interview from his home in Richmond, Ky., he said the Mirage had been pounded by the unexpected winter storm since evening, then was knocked down by one huge wave about midnight.
As Cole crawled up from the cabin, Capt. Brugger, fighting the helm, yelled for him to help reel in crew member Fred Neilson of Oregon, who had been thrown from the boat but was still tethered by his harness.
The life raft then cut lose, along with emergency drinking water rations.
``I cannot convey to you the peril we were experiencing . . . and then the relief when the sound of that first C-130 passed over our boat,'' Cole said in a letter to Capt. Stanley J. Walz, commanding officer of the Coast Guard Air Station at Elizabeth City.
Brugger, who was not heard from for the next two weeks, eventually arrived at St. Thomas - having been at sea a total of 17 days.
``I don't know how he made it,'' said Cole. ``We lost the engine, refrigeration and most of our food.''
Since the rescue, a number of recreational boaters in Hampton Roads have asked whether it was needed. Did the Coast Guard have to respond?
Cole says yes. So does Coast Guard Capt. Walz.
The crew of the Mirage hadn't been foolish in setting out on their cruise; they had checked the weather before they left, Cole said. They appeared to have experience, a good boat and reliable equipment.
And as Walz points out, his helicopter crews are in some unfamiliar waters these days, flying farther to sea to make rescues - three long-distance efforts within the past year - because of the longer range of new helicopters, HH-60 Jayhawks.
Walz says there are several lessons to be learned from the Mirage rescue. One is that the Coast Guard needs a new emergency hoist system so it won't ever leave a rescue swimmer in the water again.
Cole, meantime, has been writing legislators and anyone else of influence to remind them of the Coast Guard's importance.
``You don't think about them on a day-to-day basis,'' he said. ``But boy, what an asset we have in the Coast Guard. On behalf of all of us, thanks again.'' by CNB