A couple stranded at sea are lucky to alive after being rescued by TowBoat U.S.
Captain Potts and his crew are like roadside assistance for boaters, and Wednesday they jumped into action. They have rescued hundreds of stranded boaters, but this was different. "It was actually the first situation where it seemed like it was deadly," said Capt. Potts.
While responding to a call, they came across the capsized boat, and quickly realized lives were in danger.
"There was a debris field in the water and I just had the intuition that there may be some people in the water that we may have to search for," said Capt. Potts.
The TowBoat U.S. crew began searching the surrounding area for the boaters. "Once we recovered them in our boat they stressed to us that they had been treading water for over three hours," said Capt Potts.
Captain Shane Earhart was the one who spotted the pair of boaters, who were about 5 miles away from their capsized boat.
"When we saw them we were excited," said Capt. Earhart. "We kept high-fiving each other, pretty happy that we found them as quickly as we did and that we actually found them," he added.
The couple says the lost their phone when their boat took on water. If it weren't for the TowBoat U.S. crew who spotted their capsized boat, this may have been a very different story.
"They were very fatigued, you know kind of out of it. A situation like this can be extremely dangerous with drowning and hypothermia definitely a possibility," said Capt. Kyle Potts.
