Norcross man honored by Coast Guard for rescue at sea

Print
E-mail

By Joel Provano

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Gwinnett County man is among three seamen honored by the Coast Guard for a rescue at sea.

Seamen Charles Gray of Norcross (left), Jarrod Reed of East Liverpool, Ohio, and Pablo Taborda Jr. of Miami rescued five fishermen off the coast of Jamaica the night of Jan. 3.

More Gwinnett news »

Seamen Charles Gray of Norcross, Pablo Taborda Jr. of Miami and Jarrod Reed of East Liverpool, Ohio were aboard the cutter Venturous on a night narcotics patrol off the coast of Jamaica Jan. 3 when they spotted a light in the distance.

The officer of the day "thought it might be a buoy, but we were confident we had spotted something more than that," Taborda said. He was right.

As the cutter moved closer, the crew used an infrared camera and spotted five men clinging to the wreckage of a sunken fishing boat amid 12-foot seas and 35-knot winds. The light they had spotted from more than two miles away turned out to be a cell phone that had survived the shipwreck.

“When I heard that the light I saw was a person in the water I was really surprised and didn’t know what to think,” Gray told the Coast Guard Compass, an official Coast Guard blog.

The crew of the Venturous recovered the survivors and brought them safely aboard, where they were given medical assistance, food and water. They had been clinging to the wreckage of the capsized vessel for 10 hours.

“The most important thing I took away from training ... is not to become complacent because that’s when someone can get hurt, or in this case, we could’ve very easily missed those guys,” said Gray. “They very well could be dead right now had we not seen them.”

The three were named Shipmates of the Week for their role in the rescue.

“Even though you’re the lowest man on the totem pole, you’re still capable of making that big difference in somebody’s life,” said Reed. “We were able to make a difference that night.”