Four divers were reported missing from a leisure boat off the coast of Cape Fear in North Carolina last Sunday. The next morning, they were found and rescued by the US Coast Guard. They have since been identified as Ben Wiggins, 64, Luke Logde, 26, Dr. Daniel Williams, 46, and his 16-year-old son Evan. Thankfully, none of the men have sustained any injuries from the incident.
According to the Sandhills Sentinel, the four men had left their boat to go for a swim. Unfortunately, they ended up further away from the craft than they had originally intended. Thankfully, they had a strobe light on hand to help the Coast Guard spot them in the water. It was past midnight when they were rescued. By then, Ben told KTVB, they had already experienced a shark scare.
“We kept two of the four spear guns because we wanted to be able to have something to defend ourselves in the case we got charged by some sharks, which we did see about 3 o’clock on Sunday,” he said. “A 6-footer came right by Evan.”
Brandon Toms, owner of FST Dive Services, told WPDE that it’s easier to get lost out in the water than you’d think. He added that having the proper equipment on hand is essential for divers.
“When you’re offshore diving, you don’t have landmarks like you do here at the surface,” he explained. “So, it’s extremely important that when you get out to your site, and you anchor in, you stay close to your boat. That you are able to get back to your anchor line system. If you come off your anchor line, it’s easy to get swept away from the boat.”
He continued, “12 hours out in the ocean would be an incredibly long, scary ordeal. I’m really glad they had that safety equipment on them and I’m glad we have great responders here. Our Coast Guard is awesome in this area. I can’t brag enough about them.”
The missing divers were reunited with their loved ones at about 6 a.m. on Monday. Coast Guard spokesperson Jonathan Lally said that, while they’re still investigating the incident, they’re relieved to have found the men in one piece.
“We don’t know what the full situation was. That will be looked into a little further,” he said. “The thing is with search and rescue we go back to any time we go out to conduct search and rescue, our hope is to always bring them home, and in this case, we were able to find them and bring them back home safely.”
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