Pasadena man helps rescue 4 after boat overturns

Jason Dowgiallo, his wife Sonja and their friend Tyler Snyder had just pulled in their lines when the flare went up.

Against the lights and cars of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Dowgiallo wasn’t sure he’d seen a distress signal or just the glint of a streetlight against the darkening evening sky. But another shot into the air as the three turned their bow away from Thomas Point Park and toward Fort Smallwood.

As the three approached in their Cobia, a cellphone flashlight bobbed in the distance. Dowgiallo turned on his bow lamp, illuminating a hull poking out of the water with two men stranded on top.

The Pasadena resident, local fire departments and the Maryland Natural Resources Police rescued four men from waters near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge late Thursday after their boat overturned, leaving one trapped in the cabin and the other three clinging to the vessel.

Dowgiallo called his sighting into the Coast Guard as he, Sonja and Snyder pulled the two men onto their boat and roped in a third who’d been in the water gripping the side of the capsized Cuddy Cabin. The men spoke Spanish, Dowgiallo said, so communicating was difficult, but the men were able to alert the rescuers that another man was trapped under the boat.

Snyder jumped in to try to feel for the man, not realizing there was a cabin underneath the bobbing hull. Emergency rescue authorities showed up minutes later, and a diver from the Natural Resources Police rescued the fourth man.

Emergency responders took him to Sandy Point State Park, and a Maryland State Police helicopter transported him to Shock Trauma. The man had symptoms consistent with hypothermia, said Capt. Russ Davies of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department.

“The other three occupants declined medical treatment against advice,” he said.

An NRP officer drove to check on the fourth man in the Baltimore hospital and check on his condition, said spokeswoman Lauren Moses, and found he’d been released Friday afternoon.

The Anne Arundel Fire Department located a second boat not far from the site of the capsize and determined it had crashed into the other boat, causing the capsize, Davies said.

“The second boat was disabled but the occupants were uninjured,” he said.

The NRP is still investigating the cause of the crash, Moses said.

Dowgiallo said he isn’t sure what happened, as he didn’t see another boat while out fishing. But he’s glad he was there to help.

“Caught two fish, saved four lives,” he said.