To Coast Guard Petty Officer Steven Garcia, getting the two to safety was merely his duty.
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published October 24, 2004
Steven Garcia seemed embarrassed and just a tad baffled. In a few minutes he was going to receive one of the U.S. Coast Guard's highest awards and he wasn't even sure what he had done to merit such recognition.
Whatever it was, it had simply been in the line of duty.
But to his superiors, Petty Officer Garcia was a hero who had saved two lives. Thursday, as his wife, Maggie, and 2-year-old daughter, Reagan, watched, the Coast Guard awarded Garcia the Air Medal, one of the service's highest honors. It was a little more than a year ago that Garcia, 32, rescued two people from a sinking 35-foot sailboat 75 miles northwest of Eureka, Calif. It was the middle of the night, the weather was bad and the Coast Guard helicopter rescue would have to be attempted in strong winds and turbulent 40-foot seas.
Garcia decided it was too dangerous to try to hoist crew members from the pitching boat. It would be best, he decided, if he were lowered into the violent waves to assist them into a rescue basket. Battling frigid water for almost an hour, he rescued one person, then another. Once back in the helicopter, he treated the survivors for hypothermia and shock.
Sitting in an office at the Coast Guard Air Station near the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport on Thursday, Garcia shrugged off any notion that he'd done something heroic.
"It's my job," he said. "It could have been the next guy's shift. It just happened to be just my day."
Prodded, he went on to recount the events of Aug. 31, 2003.
"Essentially, we got a mayday call from a vessel taking on water off the shore," he said. Four people were on the Reaction, a 35-foot sailboat. For Garcia, whose job with the Coast Guard is that of a rescue swimmer, and others on the HH-65A Dolphin helicopter - a pilot, co-pilot and mechanic - it seemed like a standard operation.
But treacherous weather forced them to re-evaluate.
"They lowered me to the water and I swam out to the boat," Garcia said, not mentioning the 52-degree water temperature.
His immediate task was to get the most exhausted person off the boat. That was a woman, who appeared to be in her 50s, said Garcia, who swam with her to the rescue basket.
"We were on the downwind side of the boat, so the boat went right over the top of us. Not good," he said.
After getting the woman into the basket, he returned to the boat for a man, whom he held and protected until the basket was lowered once more.
"By that time, we were out of fuel," Garcia said.
The helicopter returned to its base at Air Station Humboldt Bay in northern California and the rescue of the two remaining crew members was undertaken by another Coast Guard crew.
During the hourlong return flight, Garcia warmed the survivors in thermal bags and treated them for hypothermia. Seasickness also had made them dehydrated, he said.
Experienced sailors, they had delayed calling for help.
"They'd been in trouble for three days," Garcia said last week. "At some point, they said, "We're done.' "
Hans Bulk, 50, a flower grower from British Columbia, was among those whose lives were saved.
"He's sailing again," his wife, Debbie Bulk, said by telephone.
Mrs. Bulk, who was not aboard, said she got news that her husband and companions were in trouble when the Coast Guard called. She was terrified, but comforted, she said.
"The Coast Guard were very, very good. They kept me informed the whole time, the fact that everybody was safe. So I was very appreciative," she said.
It is all part of the job, said Lt. Christopher Kendall, a Coast Guard spokesman and C-130 pilot.
Growing up in Destin, Garcia admired the Coast Guard. He joined about 11 years ago.
"It seemed like the fun thing to do. It seemed like a neat job," he said, of the career that has taken him to Washington, D.C., Miami and California. This is the second time he has been based at the Clearwater station.
"He doesn't really tell me about the rescues," said Garcia's wife, Maggie. The first time she heard he had done something extraordinary was from friends.
