The Coast Guard rescued a man stranded in choppy waters off the shore of Cape Cod on Monday afternoon — smack in the middle of a nor’easter that battered the state.
Passengers aboard a Steamship Authority Ferry were horrified when someone spotted a man floundering near Juniper Point-Woods Hole as thick fog rolled through the area.
The ship’s crew reported the sighting around 3:30 p.m. as others tried to save him and lobbed multiple life rings overboard while waiting for the Coast Guard.
“Out of nowhere, one person stood up and said, ‘Man overboard,’ and it was really intense because every single person on the boat shot up immediately,” Roy Mundy, a passenger onboard the ferry, told CBS News.
“It was very shocking. I saw a father out there who was trying to spot him while their son was by the door crying, trying to get the father back in because he was scared he was going to fall over. It was very intense,” Mundy added.
The ferry hadn’t departed from the Juniper Point-Woods Hole dock in Falmouth, Mass, when passengers spotted the man overboard. The boat was scheduled to depart the port at 3:45 p.m. for Martha’s Vineyard, according to The Steamship Authority’s fall schedule.
A Coast Guard crew arrived and caught sight of him from their helicopter near Nobska Point at about 4:25 p.m. — a whole hour after the ferrymen reported the sighting, the outlet reported.
All the while, the man was fighting off windswept rain, rough currents, and towering waves. Thankfully, though, high tide was starting to recede after peaking around noon.
A Coast Guard rescue swimmer was deployed and the exhausted man was safely hoisted into the helicopter.
The man was taken to the Joint Base Cape Cod and transported to Falmouth Hospital to be treated for his exposure to the elements, but was not seriously injured, according to the outlet.
It’s unclear how the man ended up in the water in the first place. Falmouth police are investigating the incident.
The nor’easter brought 10-foot waves to some coasts on top of devastating winds that toppled trees.
In New York, a 76-year-old woman in Brooklyn was struck and killed by a solar panel that flew off a nearby roof.
However, New York and New Jersey were spared from the worst of the storm and only recorded roughly 1 to 2 inches in most places.
Meanwhile, some southern states were wrecked by the storm. South and North Carolina were drenched with 10 and 4 inches of rain, respectively.
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