Barnorama All Fun In The Barn
The following story happened to an Avionics Technician that worked on F-18 Super Hornets while deployed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
This event did not take place in the light of day.
It all happened to crew member James Serrano in the darkness of night at 4a.m. (0400).
“I was getting (an F-18) ready when I went to open up the canopy, I noticed that there was something missing: it was the wing pin, which is a small metal rod that inserts into the wing and prevents it from closing or opening.”
“Well, anyway, one of them was missing.”
“I couldn’t really see so I took a side step and still couldn’t see the pin there.”
“I started walking, not paying attention to my surroundings and simply walked off the ship.”
“This was on elevator 3. I tried side stepping to get a better look at my jet and there was no more elevator to stand on.
The drop was 55 ft to the ocean.”
“That’s what you get for being dead tired I guess. Haha it was one hell of a wake up call though!”
“We were a few hundred miles off the coast of Georgia in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”
“The first thought that came to me was,
Oh shit! I’m going to get sucked under this boat and get chopped up!”
“So I started swimming as fast and as hard as I could away from the boat. I didn’t know where the propellers were so I swam for about five minutes just to make sure and to make matters worse the current was pushing me closer to the boat.”
“As you can imagine I became exhausted extremely fast and at that point I stopped swimming turned around and literally watched my only way of surviving drift off into the almost pitch black horizon.”
“Thoughts that rushed into my mind were, I’m going to die alone, they are never going to find me, I’m a dumbass for falling, should I try and swim towards the boat now, did anyone see me fall?
Those are just some of the thoughts that crossed my mind but I can assure you a million and one more thoughts were floating around my head.”
“Like my family and friends back at home. The one thought that killed me a little on the inside was:
If I die right now, my parents won’t know until when?”
“A week from now, a month, who knows? I can’t imagine getting a phone call in the middle of the night saying my child died a week ago and we can’t find his body… That thought is probably what kept me alive.”
“Each flight suit comes equipped with a strobe light and a whistle. In the few seconds you have before the boat disappears over the horizon you need to start screaming and blowing that whistle while waving your strobe light around.”
“After the initial fall my body flooded with adrenaline and I was able to swim to a distance where I was visible from the flight deck and I started blowing my whistle like no other. Luckily enough someone saw me fall, but just in case, I still made sure I was noticed. Once the pain settled in (and the freezing waters that surrounded me became all I had), I just let myself float while hoping that I was going to be able to see the light of tomorrow.”
“I turned around, started to kick my feet to kinda push me towards the direction of the boat hoping that would keep me warm enough not to freeze to death and blew one whistle for every star I could count to keep my mind from going to the worst…. 250 was how many stars I counted before I was rescued.”
“It took the helicopter 37 minutes to find me and pull me out of the water, worst 37 minutes of my life.”
“I was conscious for the entire time, however I was told I did become hypothermic and if I was in the ocean for 5 more minutes my chances of survival would have gone down to about 20 percent.”
That’s what it’s like to fall overboard from a massive U.S. Aircraft Carrier.
