Woman rescued after being swept out to sea on her paddleboard off Gloucester
GLOUCESTER – The Gloucester harbormaster rescued a pair of paddleboarders Tuesday afternoon, one of whom had drifted more than three miles out to sea.
What began as family fun took a frightening turn when a woman paddleboarding off Coffins Beach started struggling and her husband called 911 from the sand.
On the surface, it was a gorgeous beach day, but a 30 mile per hour offshore wind, and an especially strong outgoing tide pushed the woman farther and farther from shore. It prompted her son to jump on his board and go after her.
"When you're standing up on a paddleboard, you're kind of like a big sail," said Gloucester Harbormaster TJ Ciarametaro. "People don't really realize that, the wind starts picking up, now they're kind of blowing out to sea."
And that's what happened to mother and son as rescuers responded and dad tried his best to keep his fading family in sight.
It must've seemed like an eternity for that family, but the harbormaster reached mom just nine minutes after the 911 call.
"By the time we got on scene the mother was almost three and half miles off of the beach," Ciarametaro said.
Her son was a mile and half off the beach and the harbormaster returned both to the sand.
The family, which is local, declined medical attention and our request for an interview. The harbormaster says the key to this rescue was the speedy notice of trouble.
"There's a variety of things that can go wrong, and everything kind of went right for this," Ciarametaro said.
The harbormaster says it's always wise to have someone watch you from the beach and in a perfect world, he'd like to see all boarders, kayakers, and boaters have a handheld, waterproof VHF radio.
