THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 2, 1995 TAG: 9512020579
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
Shivering from the biting wind and wet feet, Helene McKay grabbed a piece of wood she had placed in the boat and wrapped her damp socks around it. She doused the socks in gasoline and set them aflame.
For hours before dawn Friday, McKay and friend Carlos Sanchez tried to attract attention - someone's, anyone's - as their disabled outboard bobbed not far from shore at the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
They could see cars passing not far away. They set off four distress flares and they tried to outscream the wind.
Nothing worked.
It was the makeshift torch, something McKay learned how to make as a Girl Scout, that finally attracted the attention of a bridge-tunnel policeman almost 12 hours after the couple started their night fishing trip.
``My feet were stinging. I thought they were going to fall off,'' McKay said Friday afternoon while recuperating from a mild case of hypothermia. ``I wanted to cry, but that wasn't going to help.''
McKay said she felt uneasy before the trip. She couldn't explain why. But she threw a few pieces of wood, about 2 inches wide and a yard long, into the 18-foot boat. It turned out to be a good move.
Just after sunrise, the police officer spotted the torchlight and alerted the Coast Guard and Virginia Beach fire and rescue personnel.
``I felt like a million pounds fell off me,'' Sanchez said about the rescue.
McKay and Sanchez had been catching rockfish all week. Luck seemed to be with the Virginia Beach couple. That all changed after they left the Great Neck Marina on Thursday evening.
First, the fish were not biting. Then their motor conked out and the steering gear failed. It was after 1 a.m., and none of the boat's three batteries could bring the motor back to life. They had no radio.
``We were hexed,'' Sanchez said. ``I prayed it would start.''
They estimated they were only about 100 yards from Chesapeake Beach and 20 yards from the bridge, but the wind kept the outboard from drifting ashore. It got colder and colder.
The overnight low in Norfolk dipped to 33 degrees, and winds gusted to 18 miles per hour.
Sanchez had two anchors out. And for a time he tried to ``walk'' the craft toward the shore by raising and lower the anchors. It didn't work.
Did they panic?
``I never panic,'' Sanchez said. ``But I noticed she had gotten her feet wet. They got very, very, very cold.''
They had donned layers of clothes, but McKay's boots were not waterproof. She slipped out of the soggy footwear and put her feet - now ice-cold and white - on her friend's stomach to draw warmth.
Then Sanchez, 35, wrapped McKay's feet in scarves and in a plastic trash bag.
Then McKay, 36, recalled her Girl Scout training and made the torch.
``At first it wouldn't work because it was so windy,'' she said.
``We were screaming, `Help, help,' '' Sanchez said.
Finally, at about 8 a.m., the couple saw a Coast Guard boat from Little Creek head their way. The little outboard was towed into a marina at Lynnhaven Inlet, and McKay was taken to Virginia Beach General Hospital for brief treatment.
Sanchez said he was feeling fine, except for a back made sore from raising and lowering the boat's anchors.
He said he was ready to go back out fishing. But next time, he said, he'll bring a radio.
And McKay again will bring her intuition and Girl Scout training. ILLUSTRATION: GARY KNAPP color photos
``I wanted to cry, but that wasn't going to help,'' said Helene
McKay, right, of the ordeal she and Carlos Sanchez, above, endured.
Map
KEYWORDS: RESCUE by CNB