Helicopter Finds Lost Diver After Drifting for Three Hours

After being spotted, below, by a USCG MH65 Dolphin helicopter, St. John Rescue officials
plucked Eric Lambert, above, from the water about a mile and half from Dog Island.

What started out as just another dive in a lifetime of diving in very familiar water for one local resident, turned into a three hour ordeal, ending with a search and rescue at sea, thanks to a U.S. Coast Guard MH65 Dolphin helicopter.

But Eric Lambert was never worried. Even when his legs cramped up after an hour of fruitlessly trying to swim to St. John from beyond Dog Island, Lambert was never concerned about his safety.

“I personally was never concerned,” he said last week, a few days after being rescued at sea after scuba diving near Dog Island. “I never got upset. I knew my friend would know who to call and that stuff would be put in motion. I knew people would be looking for me.”

Lambert, 60, a long-time St. John resident and 28-year diving veteran went out with his friend, who is also a veteran diver, U.S. Coast Guard auxiliary member, former EMT and owner of the commercial fishing boat Sword Master III, on Sunday morning December 11.

Also aboard the power boat was the future son-in-law of Lambert’s friend.

The weather was a bit overcast — for which Lambert would be grateful later — with about four to six foot seas, according to the diver. The three headed out to Dog Island, just east of Little St. James, but Lambert was the only one who went diving that morning.

“My friend was a bit congested and I was fine diving by myself because we do not take chances,” said Lambert. “We’ve done several hundred dives together and we made a plan that I would go down by myself and he would stay at anchor. I have a whistle and when I got back up to the surface, I was going to give a long blast.”

Lambert headed down, bagged two lobsters and was back at the surface about 25 minutes later. He gave a blow on the whistle, which his friend obviously heard because it sent him into action, pulling up the anchor, Lambert explained.

“We’ve talked about it since then and what happened was my friend heard the whistle and told his future son-in-law to keep an eye on me while he got the anchor up,” Lambert said. “I saw my friend going for the anchor, so I knew that he had seen me. But then they just roared past me.”

The incident technically was not a diving accident, since Lambert had no trouble during his dive. But when he surfaced, the designated spotter took his eyes off Lambert for just a second and lost sight of the diver.

“I asked my friend now after the fact, why things happened,” said Lambert. “The spotter, the son-in-law, was supposed to keep an eye on me but they went roaring right by me because the spotter looked away for just a second and lost me. They were about 30 feet from me, but they flew right by me.”

Most people don’t realize how difficult search and rescues at sea are, precisely because it’s so easy to lose sight of a person, explained U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson Ricardo Castrodad.

“When doing searches at sea, people don’t realize how difficult it is,” said Castrodad. “The truth is you can be very close to someone but if you take your eyes off of them, you can completely lose where that person is.”

“Basically all you see is someone’s head and they’re like a speck in the sand,” Castrodad said. “It’s very easy to lose sight of someone.”

When the boat passed by Lambert the first time it was 10:30 a.m. Lambert would spend the next three hours, swimming, then treading water until finally being pulled from the sea thanks to emergency responders from St. John Rescue, USCG and V.I. National Park.

“I just treaded water for about 20 and I thought they would find their way back to me,” said Lambert. “The whole time you’re listening for a motor because that is what is going to find you. When I was floating along, I was trying to keep my bearings, but I was mostly turned away from St. John because of how the seas were.”

“I swam for about an hour trying to swim toward St. John,” said the diver.  “I could tell I was drifting eastward and not making any headway to St. John, but being taken in the other direction. Then my legs started cramping up and I had to stop.”

“I thought ‘this is a marathon, not a sprint,’” he said. “I was telling myself I could be out there all night. But I knew I wasn’t alone and I knew I had a lot of people looking for me.”

“I didn’t know how long it would take, but I knew I would be found,” said Lambert.

At that point, Lambert was still holding on to his lobster bag with two specimens in it, his dive belt was still attached, he had his dive equipment, two snares and a “safety sausage” flotation device on hand as well.

After the first two hours, Lambert tried to readjust his snares and the lobster bag, when it slipped out of his fingers.

“I was rearranging my snares and a clip unhooked itself,” Lambert said. “I felt the bag fall away and my immediate reaction was to head down for it. I had to tell myself, ‘No, just let them go.’”

Shortly after the lobsters got away, Lambert released his weight belt, which helped him lie down on the water in a more comfortable position. Soon, he heard a motor and blew his whistle and waved his arms, to no avail.

“One power boat zoomed by me but they didn’t hear my whistle or see me at all,” he said. “If they had been 20 feet closer, they would have run right over me.”

Then, finally, Lambert heard the sound of a helicopter. He watched as the chopper headed out to Dog Island and then bank up the along the coast of St. John, Lambert explained.

“I knew they were looking for me because you always go to where the person was lost, which was Dog Island,” he said. “Then they roared along the coast of St. John past where I could have possibly drifted in three hours. I was waving my arms back and forth and back and forth and going around in circles.”

“After maybe about 15 minutes they headed right for me and I said, ‘Hallelujah,’” said Lambert. “It took a few minutes more, but then I saw the St. John Rescue boat and then VINP and Coast Guard were there all lights aglow.”

Lambert was pulled from the sea at 1:30 p.m. about a mile and a half from where he surfaced at 10:30 a.m. that morning. Once aboard the St. John Rescue vessel, Lambert was taken to Cruz Bay, where he met with USCG officials before finally returning home to his wife, Paula, who had no idea of the ordeal.

“My friend was going to call my wife, but then he heard I was spotted by the helicopter and that started a new chain of events,” said Lambert. “I was the first to walk in the door and I told Paula, ‘Boy, do I have a story for you.’”

A story indeed. Lambert has already ordered a new weight belt and lobster bag and plans to get back under the waves as soon as he can. But learning from this ordeal, Lambert said he’s looking into getting a mobile EPIRB distress device, which would beacon his exact GPS coordinates if he ever found himself floating out to sea again.

In the days since his ordeal, news of which quickly spread across the island, Lambert has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of concern.

“The island reaction has been amazing,” he said. “I’ve gotten hugs from so many people. It’s just been an overwhelming response from the community.”