CAPE MAY, N.J. (WCBS 880) — Seven people were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard on Sunday from a 40-foot fishing boat off the Jersey Shore coast.
According to Coast Guard officials, the spot fishing boat crew activated their Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) just after 1 p.m. as heavy rain, wind and nearly 10-foot waves began flooding their vessel, which was located about 60 miles southeast of Cape May.
Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay picked up the signal and acted quickly, sending out alerts to multiple stations near their location.
Crews at Air Station Elizabeth City in North Carolina sent an MH-60 Jayhawk and an HC-130 Hercules aircraft to assist, while a station at Indian River in Rehoboth Beach in Delaware dispatched a 47-foot motor life boat.
Video from the rescue show the aircrafts from North Carolina arriving at the scene and lifting the seven people from the water to safety.
All seven people on board the fishing boat were saved and transported to Elizabeth City for medical treatment, the Coast Guard said.
“One of the scariest and most unpredictable places you can be is out on the water in a storm,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Christopher Petrenko, an operations specialist with the Sector Delaware Bay command center.
“Fortunately, they had life jackets, a registered EPIRB and a radio, which they used to call for help. If any one of those pieces had been missing, we might not have been as successful as we were.”