How much a life? US$1.6 million? Rescue authorities tell

4:54 AM Wed 11 Mar 2009 GMT

'Sole survivor Nick Schuyler clung to the upturned boat for 46 hours - they had no EPIRB on board' .

The US Coast Guard spent $1.6 million searching for four men lost in the Gulf of Mexico last month when their boat capsized on a boating trip. The men did not have an EPIRB on board.

The Coast Guard was quoted as saying the three-day search over more than 20,000 square miles of water required 230 combined hours of Coast Guard aircraft and boats.

Rescuers found one of the men, Nick Schuyler, alive and clinging to a capsized fishing boat, where he had stayed for 46 hours. His friends, Corey Smith of the Detroit Lions, Marquis Cooper of the Oakland Raiders and Will Bleakley have not been found and are presumed dead.

Two days before Marquis Cooper took the trip with three friends in Florida Gulf Coast waters, a friend urged him to buy a life-saving device used to locate boats in distress.

Cooper hadn't heard of the gadget, an emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB). And he didn't purchase one before his excursion on Saturday.

The Coast Guard never received a distress signal from Cooper's 21-foot fishing boat.

His friend Clay Eavenson told him during a different fishing outing two days before the accident that he should get an EPIRB, which transmits radio signals and GPS coordinates that rescue crews can use to find boats in trouble.

The devices cost between $400 and $1,400 and can self-activate when boats tip over. Cooper agreed that he should have one - but didn't follow through before setting off Saturday. Eavenson had been invited to go with the four, but declined, according to the paper.

'The thing I want to come out of this is people need to become aware,' Eavenson said. 'He was not aware of what one was, and he would have had one had he known.

'He told me he was going to go buy one. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of people that do what Marquis did without knowing what is available.'

The lone survivor said two of those lost gave up after hours in the frigid water and 'took off their life-jackets and drifted away'.

After Cooper, 26, and Corey Smith, 29, were carried away, Bleakley and Schuyler hung on until morning - but then Bleakley decided to swim to get help when he thought he saw a distant light, the paper said.

He, too, took his life vest off, 24-year-old Schuyler told the families.

'I think he was delusional to think he could swim someplace,' Will's father Bob Bleakley was quoted by The Times as saying.

Coast Guard officials also commented that the boaters were not carrying special emergency radio beacons to pinpoint their location. Such devices, the officials say, can help narrow search efforts and lower the cost.

by BW Roundup

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How much a life? US$1.6 million? Rescue authorities tell

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