‘Something I’ll never forget’: Married couple details B.C. charter boat rescue

A Coast Guard helicopter flies overhead after a tugboat capsized and sank on the Fraser River between Vancouver and Richmond, B.C., on Tuesday August 14, 2018. Search and rescue officials in British Columbia say six people are still believed to be in the waters off of Vancouver airport after a marine rescue. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Witnesses became rescuers after a charter boat sank near Richmond, B.C., on Sunday morning, leaving 10 people in the water.

Search and rescue operations continued into Sunday night, but were ultimately suspended with six people remaining unaccounted for.

Brian Angus and Dorothy Stauffer tell CTV News they’ve been sailing along the coast every summer for about 30 years. As Angus explains, the couple was out on their sailboat, about an “hour out of the active pass on the Gulf Islands,” when he turned to his right and initially saw three people in the water.

‘That’s what I had to do’: Rescuers referred back to training

“I immediately alerted my wife, Dorothy, and the first thing we do is bring in the sail and then turn around,” he said, adding that he opted to drive while his wife was responsible for directing those in the water.

Stauffer said the couple’s sailboat was towing a dinghy at the time, about 50 feet back from the boat.

“Once we turned around and went back, I basically guided Brian towards the people,” she said, noting that she then saw five people in the water after they turned around.

“I shouted commands at them to swim to the dinghy, that they should grab the line and then swim to the dinghy, and either to hang on or climb in.”

Stauffer said one woman grabbed onto the dinghy and spoke with her briefly before she guided Angus to the next person they saw floating nearby.

“They were floating on their backs to stay afloat, and none of them wearing life jackets,” she said. “I basically just commanded them to swim to the line that was coming to them, the dinghy line, and to hang on.”

Stauffer explains that she and her husband followed the same formula for a third person, a man they saw floating not far from the last.

“He was much less coherent. I imagine they were hypothermic,” she said. “We managed to finally get those three folks while waiting for the hovercraft.”

Stauffer said she kept looking for the other two people she had seen in the water, but rough seas affected their ability to see anything. The couple said they then decided to focus on the likely hypothermic trio they had rescued.

Angus tells CTV News that it was “about 18 minutes” between the time he declared a mayday and the coast guard arrived.

Angus is a retired Air Canada pilot, and Stauffer is an actively working service director on board Air Canada flights.

“I deal with a lot of situations in the cabin, but this is something I’ll never forget ever,” said Stauffer. “My airline training actually really provided a lot of help. We have an acronym, the three A’s; it’s assess, adapt, act, and that’s what I had to do”

‘Invaluable’: Rescue officials on the couple’s efforts

Maj. Greg Clarke, officer in charge of the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre, said the Good Samaritans’ contribution to the rescue effort was “invaluable.”

“When our crews arrived, they saw the sailing boat really trying their valiant best to rescue several individuals that they came upon in the water without flotation devices,” he said, adding that “when the crews arrived, they were definitely hypothermic and trying their best to hold on.”

Clarke said the pair’s swift and likely life-saving action resulted in four people being transported to shore by a Coast Guard hovercraft and into the care of paramedics.

The fact that the couple called in the incident also allowed the JRCC, BC Ferries, and other agencies to marshal resources to the scene as soon as possible to assist with the search and rescue operation.

Ultimately, the JRCC’s search was called off around 9:45 p.m.—roughly 10 hours after the distress call came in.

“Our searches go until we’re confident that we’ve exhausted any possibility of finding anyone on the surface alive,” Clarke said.

In a Monday afternoon update, the Richmond RCMP said the six remaining people are presumed to have drowned.