Public safety personnel, who were off-duty and on a fishing trip last Saturday morning, initially thought they found a couple of good catch of fish until they came closer and realized the supposed catch was instead a man and a woman said to be adrift in the waters of Hallandale Beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for 14 hours.
The Broward County Sheriff’s department said the couple, Mellisa Morris, 52, and Sean McGovern, 50, fell off their 30-feet Island Hopper boat Friday at around 6.p.m in Key Largo.
The public safety personnel who found them were Broward County Sheriff’s detectives Adam White and Josh Webb, firefighter Keith Silvis and White’s father-in-law Steve Couch.
"We saw birds diving," White said. "As we got closer, I saw fish jumping. We saw a white male with his shirt flagging us down."
They pulled the couple onto their boat and said the latter appeared to be very exhausted. The couple suffered from jellyfish stings and mild hypothermia.
"[They were] pretty distraught, tired. You could tell they had been in the water for a long time," Silvis said to WSVN-TV.
"The female, when we brought her on board, her legs were actually cramped," said Couch, adding the woman could not even move her legs and so they needed to lift her off the water.
"Another 30 minutes to an hour, it probably wouldn't have the same outcome as it did today, because they were in pretty bad shape," said Webb.
White said they immediately checked the couple out and ensured they were stable before passing them to the U.S. Coast Guard that, in turn, transported them to Fort Lauderdale Coast Guard stations. The couple’s friends came to pick them up.
"They are very lucky — they didn't have any signal device," Mark Barney, spokesman of the U.S. Coast Guard, said to CNN. "They were trying to signal people down with their T-shirt. To be located and recovered by off-duty cops and a firefighter — that's a stroke of luck right there."
Barney revealed that many people don’t take on life jackets because there’s no intent to be in the water. He also said what happened to the couple was a miracle, and how they were able to stay afloat that long before they got safely recovered.
"Well, maybe God put us over there to save them, you know? Who knows why?" Webb said.
The couple’s boat was found Saturday afternoon at the beach in Fort Lauderdale.
