GALVESTON, Texas – A man who fell off a tanker 10 miles off the shore of Galveston had to be rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard last week.
The Coast Guard said they received a distress call shortly before 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday from the tanker vessel Ghibli. Crew members reported that a man fell overboard and he was not wearing a life jacket.
A news release states an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Houston and a 45-foot response boat from Coast Guard Station Galveston responded to the ship.
There, the Coast Guard located the man in the water and deployed a rescue swimmer to retrieve him. A video shows the man being pulled from the water.
He was flown to a hospital in Galveston, where he was in stable condition.
In the release, Travis Addison, the operations unit controller at Sector Houston-Galveston, said life jackets are “absolutely crucial.”
“It was fortunate that our helicopter crew was flying nearby. If not, this case might have ended differently.”
See the video of the rescue above.