Two men from Massachusetts were found stranded off Long Island’s coast by rescuers. They were then brought to safety using their FaceTime calls.
Extraordinary footage was taken to show the men teetering in the boat’s last vestiges when police reached them. One deck chair was all that was left of their sinking vessel, and one of the men asked police if they could keep it as a souvenir.
They were on the water when their boat began to sink. Panicked they called 911 to report the vessel was sinking.
“The boat is sinking, we need help,”Before sharing his terrifying update, one of the men informed dispatchers. “The boat flipped! It flipped over! It flipped over!”He said.
However, the men couldn’t be certain where exactly they were.
“They were adamant that they were in one spot, and knowing that I grew up here in the Bay and where they think they were, they were not,”Inside Edition: Mariaha Knight, dispatcher
That’s when Knight came up with a great solution: she told them to FaceTime so that rescuers could home in on the men’s visual surroundings.
“When they got on the FaceTime we told them to turn the camera around so we can see what they see,”She said.
Lt. Michael Macek, East Lyme Police in Connecticut, found the men less than a quarter mile away from the New York State Border in the Long Island Sound.
Macek stated that the men were saved with only seconds of time.
“One of the gentlemen had gone into the water and he was shivering pretty extensively,”Inside Edition was told by him.
He stated that FaceTime was the best way to spot them.
“I do give a lot of credit to that FaceTime call,”He said. “Two individuals standing on top of a capsized vessel—it’s just as hard to find a needle in a haystack.”
