It Happens Fast

It was a beautiful day for fishing as Mike Carpenter and his fishing partner and friend, John Toohey, headed out on the Atlantic Ocean from the breakwater at Charlestown, Rhode Island, on August 1, 2024. Their destination was somewhere between there and Block Island, where the fishing was reportedly excellent.

Carpenter, 72, from Burrillville, Rhode Island, loves saltwater fishing, not because it is more of a challenge, but because the fish are bigger and the experience itself is attractive in so many ways. Naturally, there are good days and bad days, depending on the weather, the currents, and the ocean itself.

“One of the things you find out when you are a saltwater fisherman is that everything depends on the tide,” explained Carpenter, a retired RI state police officer.  “You have high tide, then it’s slack for an hour, and then you are in water going out for low tide. That water is rushing, but when the water starts coming in, everything changes. The seas get rougher, the waves get bigger, and the wind picks up.”

On this particular day, Toohey’s 23-foot Sea Craft, powered by a 250hp Evinrude outboard, had no problem cruising out through the 1- to 2-foot waves, eventually pausing about five miles out. Carpenter and Toohey, who lives in North Providence, Rhode Island, began ocean fishing about 10 years ago after both retired from their respective jobs. Toohey, 78, is retired from the RI Public Transit Authority, where he worked both as a driver and in management for 42 years, so they had plenty to talk about. Once decent weather arrived, the two would head out two or three times a week.

Carpenter couldn’t help noticing at the time that the rip tide was tremendous, a common occurrence in that area off Charlestown, which is fueled by the Long Island Sound current. Rip tides, also known as rip currents or undertows, are long, narrow bands of water that flow quickly away from the seashore.

“That water was rushing,” Carpenter said. “You couldn’t swim in it.”

Beaches in the area, particularly around Matunuck just up the shore from Charlestown Beach, have warnings during the summer advising beachgoers to be careful.

Arriving at their spot, the two dropped their lines in and waited. The sea had calmed down, and they decided this was the time to kick back and enjoy their lunch since nothing was going to be biting on quiet seas. They were about 3.5 miles offshore, almost halfway between the mainland and Block Island.

“I could see land,” recalled Carpenter. “The rip current was coming in and moving in the same direction as the beach toward Galilee.”

Carpenter was used to taking stock of everything around him. It was a habit and had paid off in the many dangerous experiences he had as a detective captain with the State Police.

“With 24 years on the force, I had a lot of hair-raising experiences,” he recalled. “They’re usually over very quickly, though—less than five minutes.”

Carpenter remembered a Christmas Eve when he and another state trooper were assessing a vehicle accident on a narrow country road in Glocester, when a vehicle suddenly came careening down the road toward them, driven by a drunk driver. The two dove over a nearby snowbank as the vehicle slammed into the accident vehicle, narrowly avoiding tragedy.

“He almost killed us both,” said Carpenter.  That situation did not prepare him for what was about to happen, however.

“It was a beautiful day to be out there fishing, but when it is slack tide, you might as well not even try to fish,” he said. “For most anglers, this is the time to have lunch because the fishing turns off like a light switch. He said to Toohey, “‘I made these great sandwiches so let’s have lunch.”

“I am always very alert, looking for things like lobster buoys, for example. I was enjoying the sandwich and conversation, having a nice day, the sun was shining…” Only for a minute, Carpenter took his eyes off his immediate surroundings to focus on a lobster buoy he spotted about 150 feet away. He didn’t want to get tangled up in any lines from it.

“We’ve got to watch out for lines,” he told Toohey.

The boat, going with the waves, suddenly and unexpectedly, turned. Toohey raised the motor, exposing lobster pot lines wrapped around it.

“We’ve got a problem,” he told Toohey. “I looked down and saw the lobster buoy tangled around the prop. I went to reach for the knife, which was stuck in the bait board…but I never made it.”

Waves from the rip current suddenly hit the back of the boat.

“The first wave, a five-footer, came over the back of the boat,” he recalled, “I didn’t have a chance to do anything. When that water rushed into the boat, it just flipped over.”  Carpenter didn’t hold on for fear of being hit by the boat or the fishing equipment they had on board.

“It threw me out of the boat,” said Carpenter. “Our equipment was going by me in the air. At this point, I knew it wasn’t going to be good and I thought, this is probably the end. No question about it.”

As a former State Police officer, Carpenter was lifeguard certified and in excellent shape, but it didn’t matter. The odds, he recalled, were against him. No matter how hard he tried, he could not get back to the boat because the current was pulling it in one direction and him in the other. Toohey had managed to grab the tie line on the boat and was being hauled along with it as it drifted away.

“The boat was what saved me,” said Toohey. “If the boat had sunk, I was gone.”

Neither had life jackets on.

“I couldn’t swim in that water, and I am a good swimmer,” said Carpenter. “I said, ‘God, you have got to help me out here.’”

He no sooner said that than the Igloo cooler from the boat suddenly popped up next to him. He grabbed onto it and held on for dear life.

“A cheap Igloo cooler popped up within arm’s reach, and I grabbed the handles,” he recalled.  Still, he could not catch up to the boat, no matter how hard he tried.

“Everyone always says to stay with the boat,” said Carpenter. “I couldn’t get back to it!”

Toohey drifted further and further away.  

“I yelled, ‘John, I hope I see you again.’”

Toohey, said Carpenter, was straight out, being dragged along by the current.

“I thought I’d never see him again,” Toohey said. “He was gone.”  

Toohey continued to hold onto the boat.

“My first thing was to hold on as long as I could,” said Toohey. “I thought about how quickly this had happened and how close I was to death. I thought about my three boys and hoped I would see them again.”

As he floated along, Carpenter could see land, the Charlestown shore, but he was no match for the strong rip tide that separated him from it.

“I was determined to get to land,” he recalled. “So, I kicked for two and a half hours with all my might. I thought I could get into shore, but I hardly moved any distance toward it at all. Couldn’t do it.”

Naturally, he tried drifting with the tide and swimming at a 45-degree angle to approach land, but the tide was so strong that it simply dragged him along with it. As a husband, father of two, as well as a grandfather, he had plenty of time to think about possibilities. While fishing a few weeks earlier, he had run across several huge, curious white sharks that had approached his boat.

“People asked me, ‘What were you thinking about when you were in the water?’” he recalled. “I was thinking about that, but I was also thinking about surviving. I wanted to see my family again.”  

Eventually, he wound up 4.5 miles from the boat.

“I thought I had to plan for the long haul,” said Carpenter. “I figured I was probably going to be in the water overnight. The wind had picked up and the waves were five feet high, crashing over me. All of a sudden, though, I looked up, and there was a boat!”

The boat was a 65-foot yacht, likely heading for Galilee for lunch, he surmised. He screamed, waved his hand, but the boat kept going. Just when he thought he had been missed, the boat began to turn and head back toward him. But it wasn’t that easy.

“There was a gentleman with his wife,” said Carpenter. “I thought he hadn’t seen me because he kept going. However, he started to come back, but it is very difficult to see someone in the water with a boat that big. It was scary. The waves from the boat were washing over me. I must have swallowed two gallons of salt water, waving and yelling at him to cut the power as I didn’t want him to cut my legs off.“

After a number of attempts, he was finally pulled out.

Meanwhile, Toohey, clinging to the overturned boat, had been rescued as well, subsequently being picked up by Sea Tow before being transferred to a Coast Guard ship. The Coast Guard had already begun searching for Carpenter when the call came in that he had been found.

Carpenter explained that they often fished as late as November. Had the accident occurred then, instead of in the 70-degree water of August, he probably would not have survived due to hypothermia. Eight days later, his legs still cramped up from the effort he had made.

The near-death experience still haunts him, sometimes keeping him awake at night.

“The reason I agreed to this article,” said Carpenter, “is to let people know what can happen when you don’t wear a life jacket. I didn’t know if I was going to make it. One thing I did know was that if I’d had a life jacket on, it would have made a world of difference.”

According to U.S. Coast Guard Recreational Boating Statistics, in 2018 there were 4,145 reported accidents, 2,511 reported injuries, and 633 deaths on our nation’s waterways. A majority of those deaths (77%) were due to drowning and 84% were not wearing a life jacket. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers statistics show that for the last 10 years, most of the water-related fatalities that have occurred at their lake and river projects were men (87%) age 18 and older (86%), and 87% were not wearing a life jacket.

Will Carpenter fish again?

“Yes,” he said, “but I will definitely have my life jacket on. I’ll never go on a boat again without wearing a life jacket.”

“Neither will I,” agreed Toohey.

This holiday weekend, please wear your life jacket, be courteous to other boaters, and exercise caution at all times. Have a safe and happy 4th of July. 

Source: https://onthewater.com/it-happens-fast

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