Some kind of angels

A few years back, I was living on a houseboat, anchored in the middle of a bay that abuts Key West and its harbor, savoring for a period of time a lifestyle that many friends told me they envied.

There were elements of that adventure I don’t think my friends would have wished to share, such as navigating a tiny skiff between shore and the bigger vessel on a regular basis, subject to the whims of waves and wind.

I vividly recall running out of gas with the skiff late at night once and desperately trying to guide it to an island that would offer some temporary refuge, and thus avoid an unscheduled trip courtesy of the currents to Cuba. I called the nearby Coast Guard station for help and they told me – however politely – that they would only respond if life was imminently threatened. I needed to call Sea Tow. Or find a friend.

They weren’t being mean. It’s just not their mission. As this writing indicates, I made it back safely – indeed with the help of a friend – and lived to tell about it all.

That ordeal, and others I have suffered because of my choice to spend time on the water, came very much to mind as I reported and wrote the story that runs in today’s issue, of the rescue from a truly perilous situation of two men and a boy that occurred in Terrebonne Bay last week. Tossed by waves and wind, their 19-foot Fishmaster foundered and lost, the trio managed to survive in vicious water until help arrived. That they were found at all is a miracle.

Ironically the 10-year-old who manned up to the situation in ways I probably could not had been given a pamphlet at his church camp just a few weeks before, with a picture on it of a life preserver on choppy seas and the words “Reach down from heaven; rescue me from deep water.”

As usual, all the heroes in this situation rejected that title. Marty Thibodeaux, chief of the Little Caillou Volunteer Fire Department, Mike Ledet, who piloted the boat that effected the rescue, all of them said it was another day at the office. It was what they trained for.

The Terrebonne Parish 911 supervisor who used cell phone data to determine where the stricken party was, Greg Hood Jr., is among the heroes who seeks no notoriety.

“Any one of the staff would have done the same thing, it is just the proper way to do it,” said 911 Director Mark Boudreaux. “Everyone does their work at a team, they strive to be timely, accurate and concise.”

Ledet, whose knowledge of local waters and seamanship are legend are the stuff of legend, didn’t want to take credit either. He stressed that he was not trying to ingratiate his boss, that he was simply stating the truth as he knows it, when he said the success on his end is all about his boss, Sheriff Jerry Larpenter.

“It’s Jerry that keeps us out there,” Ledet said. “He started the Water Patrol, he saw the need for it. If it wasn’t for his commitment to what we do we couldn’t have accomplished this.”

I have heard people question why taxpayer dollars should be spent reaching out to boaters whose vessels fail them, or who run out of gas or pop a fuel line.

And I have to say that the critics have likely never had to know the feeling that comes from being stranded in a broad bay or the near Gulf of Mexico waters. The Water Patrol and its deputies have saved lives and protected property. And this was never so clear as it was in Terrebonne Bay last week.

If one can regard the 10-year-old’s reading of that pamphlet he got at work as a prayer in advance, then Larpenter, Thibodeaux Hood, Ledet and so many others who worked so tirelessly Thursday needed to know that they were all instruments that helped to answer it, when a prayer needed to be answered most effectively.

And that means all of them – named or unnamed here – are not just heroes, but also some kind of angels.