EVERETT – When Scott Redford fell off his 24-foot sailboat, his children, Destiny, 6, and Darren, 8, were afraid he would drown.
Alone on the boat between Everett and Hat Island in near darkness, the two frightened youngsters called out to him. But their fears were eased by the familiarity of practice as he directed them into roles they’d played before.
Darren became captain and piloted the boat in a circle to return to the spot where Redford bobbed in the waves. Destiny dialed 911 on a cell phone.
“They asked me what street I was on,” she said Tuesday. “I said I wasn’t on a street, I was on the ocean.
“My dad’s gone overboard.”
Redford, of Everett, and his children were pulling their crab pots from the water about 9:30 p.m. last Wednesday when Darren dropped the hook they used to snare the pots. Redford reached over the boat to catch it just as a wave hit the boat.
“It flipped me right out of the boat,” he said.
Aware of the rash of drownings this summer in Snohomish County and mindful of boating safety in general, Redford and his children practice each week when they go out on the boat.
“I hope people learn from this and teach their children what to do in an emergency,” he said.
Authorities credit the children’s knowledge and quick actions with saving their father.
Carolyn Baer, the 911 dispatch center swing shift supervisor, took Destiny’s call.
“The first thing I asked her is if her and her brother were in life jackets. I needed to ensure their safety. We didn’t want to have multiple victims,” she said.
It’s not unusual for dispatchers to get calls from boaters in summer, but there are many bodies of water in the area and it’s often hard for callers to describe where they are, she said, adding Destiny did very well considering the circumstances.
“I thought he would have to go to the hospital, and I thought he would die from the cold water,” Destiny said. “One time he went under so you could not see his head, and then he popped up. I thought he was going to go down forever like a rock.”
She and Darren called out, asking if he was OK.
“He said, ‘Yeah, I’m all right. Just don’t worry about it,’ ” Destiny said.
At Redford’s direction, Darren swung the Double D (for Darren and Destiny) in about a 25-foot arc back to about 10 feet from his father, then killed the engine, he said. Redford tried several times to climb aboard but couldn’t. He suffered some minor cuts from the propellers as they slowed when the engine died. He kept talking to the children, remaining calm to reassure them.
The boy stood on the top of the boat waving a flashlight at a passing speedboat, but it never slowed. “They didn’t even look at us,” he said with irritation.
He loaded their new flare gun but had to keep changing shells before he got one to fire, Redford said.
The dispatcher connected the U.S. Coast Guard to the call, and a petty officer radioed to a tugboat on the Snohomish River, Redford said. The crew got Redford out of the water, tied up the boat and brought the children aboard.
“Once I got on the tugboat, it took me about 15 minutes to really get my breath and move around,” Redford said.
“I commended the father on the way his children handled the situation; I was highly impressed with their training,” Baer said.
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