 May 19, 2005
The Coast Guard received a call at 7:50 p.m. from the wife of Jim Williams reporting her husband, and son, Michael Williams and a friend Wayne Guthrie overdue from a fishing trip. The three were aboard a 16-foot bayliner. The group departed Ketchikan around 8 a.m. heading toward Mary Island to fish for Halibut and were due back that day at 2 p.m. Coast Guard Station Ketchikan launched a rescue boat crew to search Dall Head and Air Station Sitka launched a helicopter crew to search the areas of Nichols Passage and Revillagigedo Channel. The boat crew found no one in the Dall Head area. Station Ketchikan launched another rescue boat crew to search the Revillagigedo Channel. As the crew was en route to the channel the helicopter crew located three people on shore and their boat anchored off Point Alava. The three people had a fire going on the beach and shot off a flare when they saw the Coast Guard helicopter. A rescue swimmer was hoisted down to confirm the identities of the three people and to check their condition and found that one of the men, Jim Williams, was having back pain, but the other two, Michael Williams and Guthrie Wayne, were in good condition. The helicopter crew transported the injured man back to Ketchikan Airport, but the man refused medical treatment. The boat crew picked up the other two men and took them back to Ketchikan. The 16-foot bayliner had become disabled and drifted to Point Alava, where the three men anchored the boat and waited onshore for someone to help them. The boat remains anchored and
the Coast Guard plans to follow up with the owner on his intentions
for recovery. Source of News:
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