Swift Response Prevents Tragedy Near Secret Beach  

A tourist and a boat captain narrowly escaped disaster Friday night after drifting for nearly four hours in open water near Secret Beach on Ambergris Caye. The pair slipped away from their boat while swimming at a sandbar and were left fighting the current as darkness closed in. Back on board, a third passenger steered the vessel alone toward the lights of Secret Beach and sounded the alarm. What followed was a frantic, community wide search involving police, the Coast Guard, emergency responders, and local boaters, sparked in part by a Facebook alert. Rescuers finally spotted the exhausted pair wading through shallow water toward shore. EMT Abner Bacab was among the first on scene, calling it a rescue that came just in time.

 

Abner Bacab, Emergency Medical Technician

“ Once we arrived on location, we met the female there. We spoke to her, tried to get some information, and that’s when we knew that it was her. It was three persons, herself, a friend and a boat captain that had been on the tour and they had went to a sandbar nearby, and after a while, the two persons had entered the water.  I don’t know if probably the water was a bit with current and they drifted a little bit away or they just swam away. At some point the female on the boat could not locate them. She tried calling for them, trying to see if there’s any response. It was getting dark night was coming in, without no response. So her instance, her first thing she did was she was able to start the boat and she could have seen the lights at Secret Beach. So she went towards the light. That’s how she end up at the dock and where, the people that live on the property met her and they asked her ‘What’s happening?’ And we got the call. We went on searching, maybe like half an hour or a little bit more, 45 minutes. I received a call from my son that was on shore. Saying that they were hearing somebody screaming close by, you know? So they had lights, they were able to get in the boat, go closer to them, and they found them there. They were coming towards shore, but they were a bit tired, extreme fatigue, and just a little bit weak. The other two persons, thankfully, they were brought to shore safely. None of them suffer any severe injuries or anything more than that.”

 

Bacab says shallow waters and local knowledge helped them to reach shore but stress the need for future safety planning.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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