HeroAdrift_PRC

"I shall sell life dearly to an enemy of my country,
but give it freely to rescue those in peril.
With God's help, I shall endeavor to be one of His noblest Works..."
From the Creed of the
United States Coast Guardsman
(written by VADM Harry G. Hamlet)

"Okay everyone, stay calm!" Abby called. "I'm sure someone will be here to help us as soon as possible."

She turned quickly to her teacher's assistant, a young man who looked almost as frightened as the nineteen six-year-olds who made up her class. They were part of a large group of first-graders taking a tour on a sightseeing boat that traversed the Niagara River between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. With parents and children, there were nearly one hundred people on the boat called the
Niagara Belle,
and they were currently dead in the water.

Abby tried to smile reassuringly again. Things were not looking good.

Abby's class was from the Buffalo School. Things had been going extremely smooth on this late-spring sightseeing trip and the children had been having a great time, in addition to learning a lot about the history of the great river and the Erie Canal. In fact, things had been going so well Abby had finally relaxed. But that's what she got for letting her guard down. Now things were looking bleak. She could feel her throat tighten and her panic begin to rise.

The water of the Niagara that had looked calm and peaceful at the start of the tour now looked dark and dangerous. The wind had picked up and was whipping in off Lake Erie, bringing with it the cold bite of winter still lingering over western New York and lake waters that hadn't begun to warm for the summer. Worse, there was a large black cloud coming in from the west. It appeared to Abby as if it was being pushed by a rocket on a collision course with them.

Add to all this the danger of the river and the dead tour boat...her captain apparently suffering a heart attack. Abby sucked in a deep breath. Well, it wouldn't do to panic. She had to be strong and self-assured or her children would pick up on her fears.

"Okay, kids, everyone find your buddy and line up in a straight line behind Mr. Stella," she called. "Let's let the crew and Dr. Bailey do their work."

Dr. Bailey and one of the chaperones, who was a nurse, were working feverishly on the captain. The boat had an emergency medical kit and Abby knew that calls had already been made to 911. In fact, as she looked out over the bow, she could see a large white-and-red boat coming to them. She smiled again.
Everything's going to be fine.

She wouldn't even think about the fact it seemed as if the
Belle
was drifting closer and closer to the large International Railroad Bridge that crossed the Niagara from Buffalo's Black Rock neighborhood to Fort Erie, Ontario. What could happen? Just because the bridge had been built in 1870 and was still used today, surely a ninety-foot long cruise and tour boat built in the 1990s could handle ramming into the bridge supports.
Right?

Abby closed her eyes as another wave of panic threatened to overcome her. She'd put that right out of her mind. That just left room for the thought of what would happen if a bridge meant to carry the weight of freight trains collapsed on top of their relatively modern boat.

"Look, Ms. Smithton. The Coast Guard is coming," one of the children cried.

Abby looked back out over the bow and could now make out the markings on the white boat. The child was right. It was the Coast Guard. And Abby could see there were other boats speeding to their rescue as well. Abby smiled, starting to really relax. "Yes, I see. I told you there was nothing to worry about. Now hurry up and find your buddy."

Abby refused to think about how they were going to get everyone off the
Niagara Belle
and onto the other boats. Well, maybe they'd just tow the
Belle
and her passengers back to shore. There probably wouldn't be any danger of anyone having to step over the water. At any rate, Abby knew the Coast Guard and all the other rescue teams were the experts. She'd let them handle it.

She wasn't afraid of water...she just didn't like the fact she couldn't see the bottom. She wouldn't think about what it would be like stepping across a chasm between two heaving decks. It probably wouldn't even come to that.

"Everyone, here I am," called John Stella, her teacher's aide.

Some kids were scurrying to obey, while a few others lingered at the rail. Abby went over to hurry them along.

She felt a tug on the bottom of her blouse and looked down at the excited face of Billy Borrelli.

"Ms. Smithton, do you think the Coast Guard will ram us?" he asked with a mixture of fear and excitement on his cherubic face and in his voice.

"No, Billy, they will not ram us," she said firmly.

"Oh." He looked a bit crestfallen. "Well, it could happen."

"Only on a computer game," she replied. "Now hurry up and find your buddy and get in line. We want to be able to do everything the Coast Guard tells us when they get on board, okay?"

Billy nodded and took one last long look at the boats drawing up to them.

Another child called her name and she turned away, one thought in her mind--getting everyone safely off this boat and back on land.

The
U.S.S. Comfort
pulled aside the
Niagara Belle
and Petty Officer Oliver Robinson balanced his weight on the balls of his feet as the skipper, Lieutenant George Danheiser throttled back and sent the diesel engine of their forty-seven-foot Motor Life Boat into idle. The current on the Niagara River was fast, with wind whipping up around twenty knots causing whitecaps to swell. The
Belle
was being pulled closer and closer to the International Railway Bridge and no one wanted to see whether ship or bridge would win that battle. The destruction was one thing, the possible disruption of the commercial railway traffic between the United States and Canada another. In fact, Oliver looked over and saw a boat from the Canadian Coast Guard tearing up river, as well as support craft from the local law enforcement agencies.

The plan was to position the
Comfort
in front of the
Belle
and, using a tow line, keep her steady while they transferred the passengers to smaller crafts and returned them to land. Perhaps in normal situations, they would just leave the passengers aboard and tow the
Belle
back to port. But this wasn't a normal situation. They had a report the
Belle's
captain had collapsed with a possible heart attack. They also had learned the
Belle
was hosting over a hundred elementary school students from the area. No one wanted to risk anything happening to the youngsters, so the decision had been made to take everyone off the
Belle,
just in case.

Search and rescue were the prime functions of the Coast Guard and one of the biggest reasons Oliver had signed up. Of course, since he'd been in, things had changed with the Guard taking on more and more responsibilities for law enforcement and homeland security.

But search and rescue had always held a special spot in Oliver's gut. It was the thing he'd miss most when he left the Guard.

This rescue was a little trickier than normal because of the children involved, but he also felt a little relieved. Oliver had just been transferred to Buffalo after spending eight months at Air Station Miami, where the duty was always exciting and hazardous. Buffalo normally wasn't quite so active, but with his shoulder still acting up after he had been shot on his last Miami op by the drug dealer they were trying to capture, Oliver could use a little light duty.

He turned his thoughts away from Miami. There was no use going over it again because thinking about that evening just pissed him off and he couldn't do anything to change what had happened. He also didn't need to have those thoughts in his mind when he was facing a rescue.

One thing Oliver had learned early in his CG career was to never take any rescue for granted and keep his mind one hundred percent on the job.

The
Comfort
was in place and Oliver saw the signal from Danheiser that things were ready. Seaman Joe Poreda stepped from the
Comfort
onto the
Belle,
temporary anchor in hand, and headed to the stern. He made quick work of securing the anchor and then tying off a couple of lead ropes as well, making sure the
Comfort
would help keep the
Belle
steady.

"Man overboard!"

The shout sent a chill down Oliver's back and he looked all around the
Belle.
He saw the flash of orange of a P.F.D., a personal floatation device, off the port side. God, it was a child.

Oliver knew the average water temperature of the Niagara River in the middle of May was 45.2 degrees. An adult would be exhausted swimming in that temperature in around thirty to forty minutes. Then there was the speed of the current and the real possibility the victim was injured and would drown even with the P.F.D.

But this was a child. That ratcheted things up quite a bit. He wouldn't have a child drown. Not on his watch.

In the time it took him to pull his protective waterproof headgear into place, another call rang overboard. "Man overboard times two!"

Damn.
This simple rescue had gone to shit in an instant he thought as he flipped over the rail and headed for the first flash of orange he saw.

"Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen," Abby counted the children lined up. "Oh, God, who's missing?"

Frantically she looked at the faces of her children. ""Where's Billy?" she asked John.

"I don't know," he replied. "He was just there a minute ago. I saw you talking to him."

"He was worried about us getting rammed by the Coast Guard," Abby said. She was turning to her right and left, praying she'd find the little boy soon. The man overboard call came just as her gaze ricocheted out the boat and she saw the flash of orange over the left railing.

The Coast Guardsman was at the other end of the
Belle
. There was an Erie County sheriff's patrol boat on the left side and the students were standing on the right. She could see another boat racing to them from the Canadian coastline, but she wasn't certain if they'd reach them or if they could see Billy's orange life jacket and body. Abby knew Billy had only one chance. She bit back her fear at the thought of the cold, dark water coming over her head, but closed her eyes and jumped in. Billy was her responsibility. She didn't take that lightly.