A J.W. Westcott Co. boat crew rescued two riders from a sinking Jet Ski-type watercraft in the Detroit River under the Ambassador Bridge on Friday, Aug. 21.
Captain Neil Schultheiss said he and dispatchers/deckhands Dario Cordova and Jose Mendez were preparing for a typical night on the job — a mail delivery to a freighter and pilot swaps — when they heard reports of people in the water through the marine radio around 8:30 p.m.
The crew realized the scene was near their dock. Within 60 seconds, they launched the M.S. Westcott mail and pilot boat, Schultheiss said, noting it was slower than their typical 30-second response because they missed the first part of the message.
The Windsor-based Macassa Bay tour boat was throwing out life rings in the
water when the M.S. Westcott arrived on scene. The Westcott crew leveraged its smaller, more maneuverable boat to get close and pull the men out of the water, Schultheiss said.
The personal watercraft began having a problem and filling with water near Ralph C. Wilson Centennial Park. It was sinking as it floated from there to the Ambassador Bridge, Schultheiss said.
Schultheiss said the rescue went smoothly and happened in ideal conditions of light wind, light waves and a not-too-cold water temperature of approximately 75 degrees. Schultheiss said Cordova and Mendez did well on the rescue.
“I'm really proud of those guys," Schultheiss said. "They're fairly new and they're younger guys and they did everything in the training they were supposed to do."
The Westcott Co. often transports people on and off moving boats as a part of its pilot and crew change services, so employees routinely practice what to do in a "man overboard" situation by putting an item in the river and recovering it as a person, Schultheiss said.
"When we hear something come in, there’s not really a plan or a discussion. We trained for it," Schultheiss said. "We all kind of run for the boat, get in the boat and go. People say when you get in a situation like that, you revert to the training, and it really is true."
Schultheiss said Detroit River rescues are a part of the 153-year-old family business’s culture. There are accounts of founder J.W. Westcott rescuing people in a rowboat in the 1800s, he said. All-hands-on-deck help is also part of the Detroit culture.
“If you look at the whole marine community down in Detroit, this is kind of what everybody does," he said. "Technically as a professional mariner, you’re required to render assistance when you can, if it is safe to do, but really the tour boats, everybody else, it’s more of a culture you want to help."
On Aug. 20, Schultheiss said, a J.W. Westcott boat responded to someone falling in the water at Riverside Park and that people on shore had thrown life rings and helped the person out of the water by the time they got there. He said Westcott boats usually respond to two or three rescues a year on average, and most of the time, it takes a boat to get someone out of the river
“The current in the Detroit River is swift,” he said. “In most of the river, the shoreline is industrial, so you have steel walls that you can’t climb up. Once you go in, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re just going to drift downriver until a boat picks you up. You’re not going to be able to swim to shore and pull yourself out for the most part."
All vessels in Michigan must be equipped with a U.S. Coast Guard approved personal flotation devices, according to Michigan's Department of Natural Resources. Unlike some rescues he's been a part of, Schultheiss said, Friday's rescuees had all the correct equipment and were wearing life jackets.
Schultheiss said he and the crew tied the personal watercraft to their boat and pulled it to the Westcott dock, where friends came to pick up the men who fell in the water.
"We tied the jet ski off, put the guys on land, and then we went and delivered our mail to the freighter, and then did the pilot change and then returned the life ring to the Macassa Bay," he said. "It was like everything was neatly wrapped up ... in close to an hour."
Contact Natalie Davies at ndavies@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: J.W. Westcott mail boat rescues 2 watercraft riders under Ambassador Bridge
