CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. — What started as a routine marine training exercise for two Charlotte County Sheriff’s deputies quickly turned into a life-or-death rescue mission.
Watch senior reporter Emily Young hear the story straight from the source:
Last Tuesday afternoon, Deputy Jonathan Smith of the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office Marine Patrol Unit took a trainee out on the water for a firsthand experience of the job. But the exercise took a dramatic turn when a distress call came in around 3 p.m.
A vessel with a failed engine was being battered by high winds and seven-foot waves in the Gulf of Mexico. Without hesitation, Smith and his trainee sprang into action, navigating about a mile offshore through winds reaching 25 to 35 mph before they could even spot the stranded boat.
When they arrived, they found two grandfathers on-board—one a Purple Heart Vietnam veteran and the other a cancer survivor. Both were desperate to reach the shore, especially as one of them had fallen ill.
With the rough conditions making the rescue difficult, Smith had to re-position his boat multiple times before successfully reaching the stranded men. Just hours after the rescue, their vessel sank beneath the waves.
“I came up like this, this was our vessel, that I was coming to, and I just moved to this side here, wrapped around a cleat, and held us tight. John, the trainee, was holding the rope so we could get those people off,” Smith explained.
The men, overwhelmed with relief and gratitude, later wrote a letter to the Sheriff’s Office thanking Smith and his trainee for their heroic efforts.
While the dramatic rescue is something the two men and their families will never forget, for Deputy Jonathan Smith, it was just another day on the job.
