Trio whose boat sank in Gulf of Mexico rescued from water after fighting off shark
Luan Nguyen and his two friends hoped to do little more this weekend than fish and relax.
But their boat trip on Saturday into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico near south-east Louisiana became much more dramatic when the vessel sank and Nguyen found himself having to fight off a shark, before the US Coast Guard finally rescued them after more than a day.
“I stuck both of my thumbs and jabbed him in the eyes, and it took off,” the 46-year-old Nguyen told New Orleans news station WWL-TV of his encounter with the shark. “Not a good situation.”
Officials confirmed Nguyen’s story. Shark attacks are relatively rare – last year there were fewer than 75 worldwide that were reported as unprovoked, disproportionately in Florida – but can be highly dangerous.
Along with Son Nguyen and Phong Lee, the trio of friends from the New Orleans suburb of Harvey left for their fishing trip from a marina in Empire, roughly 60 miles (97km) south-east of the city, on the hunt for some red snapper to cook up.
About 25 miles out from the shore, the engine began having problems. The group tried to return to the marina but the choppy waters began to swamp the boat.
Eventually it sank, leaving the friends floating in bright orange life vests. Luan Nguyen was clinging to an ice chest to help him stay afloat when a shark swam up and attacked.
“The head part was in front of me, and the shark from just out of nowhere bit the vest,” Nguyen told WWL-TV. “So, I pushed the shark and then I tried to push his nose. That didn’t do anything.
So, I stuck both of my thumbs and jabbed him in the eyes, and it took off.”
Coast Guard officials said the men could not call for help because they lacked appropriate emergency communication devices. Instead, a relative notified the agency that something was wrong when the men did not return to the marina as scheduled.
That prompted Coast Guard boat and helicopter crews to search an area about the same size as Rhode Island. They finally spotted Nguyen roughly 28 hours after the boat sank, he said.
Dramatic video and photos captured from aboard the helicopter showed rescuers pulling two of the men out of the water into a boat, then hoisting them up to the helicopter.
The entire group was flown to a hospital in New Orleans. Two received treatment for relatively minor hand wounds. Nguyen said he and his friends were hypothermic from spending so much time in the ocean: water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico in October are typically around 80F (26.5C), which is cold enough to cause hypothermia after several hours without protective clothing.
Luan Nguyen said although he and his friends will recover physically he isn’t sure if he’ll ever return to open water.
“That’s the gist of it – my offshore fishing career is over,” Nguyen said.