Keeth's ordeal had unfolded with terrifying speed. He and seven other crewmen were aboard the sea tug Gulf Majesty that was hauling a 699-foot container barge bound for Puerto Rico, when it pulled out of Jacksonville, Fla., ahead of the storm. Plans were to stay well clear of Floyd, but the huge hurricane moved so quickly that it overtook the tug, 3½ days out of port. By the early morning of Sept. 15, Keeth, a seaman for two years, found himself in seas larger than any he had ever known. "The waves were crashing over the top [of the ship]," he says. "At one point we had a 46-degree pitch. When it rolled you'd be walking on the side of the walls." By 7:30 a.m., as the vessel was being hammered by 50-foot waves and taking on water, Capt. John Dalton ordered his crew into the Gulf Majesty's rescue raft.
Suddenly, after five of the men had climbed into the raft, a nylon line snapped, and it began racing away, leaving Keeth and fellow crewmen Tim Chambers and David Lytle stranded on the Gulf Majesty. "It was a real sickening feeling in your stomach, seeing them go away," says Keeth. He and his two shipmates had no choice but to jump into the water with nothing but their life vests and emergency items, including a beacon, and hope for the best. The three of them clung to a broom handle to keep together as the storm raged around them. "After you tread water for a couple of hours, you're not sure if you're really going to be picked up or not," says Keeth. "Who would be out in that weather?"
Fortunately for the three crewmen, the 82,000-ton aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy had put to sea from its base near Jacksonville to ride out the storm. Alerted by the Coast Guard to the Gulf Majesty's distress signal, the JFK launched two Seahawk helicopters at 10:30 a.m. Aboard one of them was Petty Officer Shad Hernandez, 23, of Stan-field, Ore., who has served two years as a Navy search-and-rescue swimmer but who had never before plucked anyone from the ocean except in practice. "We train for search-and-rescue every day, but it's under standard conditions," says Lt. Cmdr. Joseph D'Angelo, 35, who was piloting Hernandez's chopper. "This was by far the hairiest." The main problem was the mountainous seas that made hovering difficult. "I asked [Hernandez] more than once, 'Are you sure you're ready to go into that water?' and he said 'Yes, sir!' " recalls D'Angelo.
Keeth and his two companions, who had popped smoke grenades to attract the rescuers' attention, were no less eager at that point. "When we saw those helicopters, we weren't really looking at helicopters," says Keeth. "We were looking at angels coming." But first, Hernandez, clad in a wet suit and flotation collar, had to perform the perilous maneuver of being lowered by hoist into the water, free-swimming 10 to 15 yards to the three men and bringing them back one by one to the rescue harness so they could be lifted up. "I was scared. I didn't know what was going to happen," he says. "But when I got on the hoist, the adrenaline and my training took over."
As soon as the three were safely on board, both helicopters headed back to the JFK, where they refueled before returning to rescue the five men in the raft. Later, Keeth marveled at the courage Hernandez and the Navy crews had shown. "He had the choice of whether to jump into the water after us or not," says Keeth, "and he didn't hesitate. You know, you wonder what your life's worth, and then somebody really shows you—it's worth their life. That's the biggest price anyone can pay."
Bill Hewitt
Don Sider in Jacksonville
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- Don Sider.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
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