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ANCHORAGE, Alaska – As the fishing vessel Alaska Ranger sank to the bottom of the Bering Sea, crewman Byron Carrillo and 1st Assistant Engineer James Madruga struggled to stay afloat in the rough and frigid waves.
With Carrillo drifting into hypothermic shock after nearly five hours, the arrival of a Coast Guard rescue helicopter was a blessing, Madruga said Friday. He told the rescue swimmer to “take Byron first” and watched the panicked crewman being loaded into a dangling basket.
But when he reached the helicopter himself, Carrillo was nowhere to be seen, Madruga said during the first day of public testimony on the incident before a board of Coast Guard investigators. Carrillo’s disappearance is one of the many unknowns the Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board are grappling with as they try to re-enact the Easter Sunday sinking. Five men, including the captain, died in what was one of Alaska’s worst fishing accidents in recent memory. “When I got up to the chopper I asked them, ‘Where was the guy they brought up before me?'” Madruga said at the hearing before the Marine Board of Investigation in Dutch Harbor. According to the Coast Guard, the crew and other survivors told Madruga he was the only one. No other man had been brought up.
“This is the part now where I don’t understand,” said Madruga, of San Diego. “He took Byron. I saw Byron get into the basket and go up. It was pretty hard to look up because of the wind on your face. And the swimmer came for me, and I went up.” The Coast Guard said it is investigating the loss of an individual from the basket during the rescue, but said that person’s identity has not been determined. In total, the Coast Guard plucked 42 crewmen from the dark waters and Madruga ended his testimony with a nod to the rescue teams.
“You guys are really super, what you did,” he said.
Weird!
maybe with hypothermia he was having hallucinations? That’s a lot of stress on the mind in those conditions… just a thought. glad he survived.
I’m with you #1, the survivor was probably delerious from the cold.
Coast Guard rescues don’t always have happy endings but I don’t believe the whole rescue crew would cover it up if they lost someone.
So, it gets cold in Canada?
Why on earth do some people automatically jump feet first into the “conspiracy theory” boat when as #1 posits, Madruga was almost definately affected by the extreme cold and his memory of the event does not match with reality.
Whats worse is that Madruga actually slip and fell from the top of a waterslide in Six Flags Over Texas.
My initial thought was Madruga imagined the rescue of his comrade, but then there’s this sentence:
This appears to confirm something happened during the rescue.
Even though the article doesn’t indicate it, I’ll generously assume the reporter asked the CG for details about this but they weren’t forthcoming.
It’s pretty obvious that Madruga was seeing Carillo’s ghost.
Case closed.
Sounds like a Kevin Costner movie to me….
damn that sucks. To lose someone like that. I’m sure it was due to extreme cold, hallucinations a d strong wind from the choppers fans caused this guy more confusions.
He just witnessed the catch and release program.`
The mystery thickens…
“Five men would die that morning. The bodies of only four were recovered.”
No way does anybody want to even insinuate that the CG isn’t the best. These guys have saved more than Jesus (almost!). However, helicopter rescue in stormy seas isn’t the kind of activity you can do with a flawless record, doesn’t matter how much you train or how talented you are. A great number of things can wrong, so rather than tell the man his buddy didn’t make it, they fibbed. Ghosts! c’mon people! Why not aliens? or the easter bunny!?
#12…I’ll NEVER believe the Easter Bunny was involved in a cover up.