NORTHPORT, Maine — Two men were treated for hypothermia Tuesday afternoon after surviving what may have been an hourlong swim in the 47-degree waters of Penobscot Bay.
Brandon Drake and Bradford Enos, ages and addresses not available, said they had to swim after their construction boat sank about a mile from shore.
“We got lucky,” Drake said later that evening in the parking lot of Waldo County General Hospital. “It’s been a long day, and now we want to see our loved ones.”
Drake and Enos, who work for the drilling company Maine Test Borings Inc. of Brewer, had been doing a project on Hutchins Island at the northern end of Islesboro, according to U.S. Coast Guard and Maine Marine Patrol officials.
As the two left the island in a steel work boat, Penobscot Bay was calm, said Belfast paramedic Debby Heath.
“Apparently once they headed over, it became really rough and had whitecaps,” she said. “The water must have overtaken the boat. They’re some lucky that they’re alive.”
Both Drake and Enos were wearing life jackets, but not survival suits. One of them had a cell phone tucked into a Ziploc bag in his life jacket, Heath said, but when he went to call 911, the phone got salt water in it and would not work.
“I’m sure that they were seeing their lives pass before their eyes,” Heath said.
One man apparently used a knife to cut off his boots so that he could swim more easily, the paramedic said.
After spending an hour in the ocean, the men estimated, they made it to shore close to an upscale subdivision on Catching Cove Road in Northport.
The two, shivering badly, knocked on Sara Wilds’ door about 4 p.m.
“They could hardly talk,” she said.
They asked for a cell phone, called one person to say the boat sank, then called 911.
Then they did something surprising.
Drake and Enos lay down on her sun-warmed asphalt driveway to soak up some heat, and Wilds found blankets to pile on top of them.
“I lay down in the driveway because it was black and warm,” one of the men later Heath said.
An ambulance from Northport Rescue responded within five minutes, and one from Belfast came quickly after that.
Drake and Enos were wrapped in blankets and warmed up with hot packs, then transported to the hospital. They were released by 7 p.m., after they were interviewed by Marine Patrol Officer Matt Talbot, who wanted to find out more about the sinking, the boat, and what kind of cargo was on board in case of accidental environmental pollution.
All involved seemed amazed that the men had been in the water for so long, and were in such good condition.
“If they were in that water an hour, they were extremely lucky,” said Mike Alley, Northport fire chief.
Curtis Barthel, the commanding officer at Coast Guard Station Rockland, said that water temperature in the middle of the bay was 47 degrees. The Coast Guard has a “50-50-50” rule — that a person with a life jacket has a 50 percent survival rate in 50 degree water for about 50 minutes.
“An hour is a long time. The beach is always a lot farther away than you think it is,” Barthel said. “A lot of survivability depends on a person’s body makeup. A lot of it also depends on their will to live.”