The second person the U.S. Coast Guard rescued as Hurricane Ian decimated our area was David Littlefield, a man saved by his emergency locator beacon and what appears to be a lot of luck.
Before Ian took aim at the Tampa Bay region, Littlefield told us his marina told him he had to get his boat out of the marina. So with the track still showing a Tampa hit, Littlefield decided to head south. It was a 50-50 decision that nearly cost him his life.
"I decided to try it outrun the storm by going south," Littlefield said. "And, eventually, I sort of lost contact because my cell phone battery died. I didn't really know which way the storm was going."
ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska interviewed Littlefield at a news conference held by the U.S. Coast Guard in Clearwater as he reunited with the crew that saved him from the raging waters near Pine Island Sound.
"About 10 o'clock is when the water started rushing in," Littlefield said. "And then it just kept rising and rising and rising. I don't know how much longer it would have been. But I knew there was no way that any rescue could be effective unless I was not inside."
The boat was taking on so much water the cabin doors were flooded to the point where Littlefield couldn't get out. Then he saw his opportunity to crawl out a window.
"So, about I'm gonna say probably the wind, the waves died, I saw blue skies. And I said, now's the time. I gotta get out," Littlefield said.
That opportunity was the calm of the eye passing over.
He rode out the storm taking on water, getting blasted with hurricane-force winds, and pounding rain for the next 10 hours.
Ian made landfall Wednesday, Sept. 28; Littlefield said he wasn't rescued until the following day early in the morning.
The Coast Guard was finally cleared to fly and worked on tracking down his location. Flying from West Palm across the state in total darkness with 45-knot winds, the Coast Guard team searched.
"We had to fly around for quite a little while 'til we were able to kind of pick up a homing beacon on his emergency device," pilot Micah Acree said. "And then we saw his boat coming through the mist. And then we just turned around really quick and got into a hover by him."
Rescue swimmer Jethro Hauser said the conditions were still dicey even as they attempted the rescue.
"And I physically couldn't get to him on top of the boat; it was really steep and slippery, on the one side, of the bow. And on the other side, you know, quite a boat that's meant to be in the water now, not in the water anymore," Hauser said. "So getting to him took a few minutes and tried to, you know, climb around and climb up some railings. But it was awesome. He grabbed me, and you know, the first words out of his mouth — thank you. And, you know, that's, that's awesome."
Littlefield was the second person rescued. But, according to the Coast Guard, there would be 744 more — a total of 746 people — plucked from harm and into safety, along with 94 pets.
"It's a real person, and they're in a life-threatening situation, and so hours go by like nothing you know, just because the job matters," flight mechanic Megan Howard told Paluska. "You know that you're helping people we're, you know, in a very bad position often, so it's really not, at least I think for most of us, it's not really that draining just because you know it matters so much."