Nicks Falcon

Yesterday was a traumatic day that will forever burn into my mind. I took off early from work to put my boat in the water and do a quick few hours of bay fishing with last remaining hours of daylight left. I mean last week my Nicks got to experience some snow in the Rocky Mountains and this week I figured I'd get a little salt air on them to help this patina along. Let me tell you, I had no idea what was in-store for me. As I made my way to the boat ramp I recieved a call from a co-worker who knew I was going fishing, telling me that an airplane had just crashed into the bay off of Galveston, TX. Galveston is a fairly large city and I assumed there would be a ton of rescue boats/helicopter search teams in the area. As I made my way to the boat ramp I noticed the weather almost instantly change to some of the thickest fog I have ever seen. I arrived at the boat ramp and was met with a sea of flashing lights from Fire, EMS, and Police vehicles. A large group of emergency crew stood at the dock, but there was not a single boat anywhere. As I approached the ramp I was waved down by emergency crew begging me to quickly put my boat in the water. I deployed the boat and the next thing you know I had 4 members of law enforcment aboard and we were headed out into the bay. What happened next was simply a miracle and a tragedy at the same time. No one knew exactly where this crash was located. There were no GPS coordinates and there was ZERO visibility with the fog. The police were recieving information over the radio but nothing to actually pinpoint where to go. The bay is literally hundreds of square miles large and the crash could be anywhere. Making an educated decision, we decided to head in the direction of the airport as a starting point. Again, the fog was so thick and we had to drive super slow, avoiding shallow water sandbars and oyster reefs. As we approached the area, we began seeing pieces of floating airplane parts and debri. We continued to search the area, following the trail of the debri until miraculously we came upon the wreckage. The plane appeared to have split in two pieces. There was only one very small boat on scene when we arrived. A fisherman and his family that had been near the crash when it happened. The fuselage of the airplane was about 80% submerged and as you can see in the photo, the part that was sticking out of the water was a mangled wreck. The fisherman yelled to us indicating he had two passengers of the plane on board who were injured. We quickly came aside him and loaded up the passengers which were a female in her 20's and a 2 year old child. The female appeared to have a broken back and unfortunately the child was deceased. I was so confused because the child was covered in burns but I did not see any evidence of a fire. As we were loading them up there was screaming coming from inside the airplane. By this time another boat had arrived with more law enforcment and they jumped into the water to try and extract the remaining passengers. They apparently needed tools that they did not have. Everyone is screaming at eachother, radios are going off, boats are trying not to hit eachother, COMPLETE CHAOS. A middle aged female who was alive was pulled from the wreckage by another boat. She appeared to have broken legs. We began transporting the 20 year old female and 2 year old child back to land. CPR was being peformed on the child just in case. As we started to to leave the wreckage, the first emergency boat with paramedics arrived and we handed off the child to them. They directed us to continue transporting the injured female to land. We finally got to the dock and handed her off to an ambulance crew. More emergency boats were being deployed at the ramp at this point. We then led some of the rescue boats through the fog back to the wreckage. At this point a dive team deployed and we floated around watching the emergency teams work. More passengers and the pilots were pulled from the wreckage, unfortunately all deceased. After a while things finally began to calm down. I started to get some of the things on my boat situated from all the chaos and while doing so my Nicks Falcons with a v-bar sole were slipping all over the place. The passengers we had brought aboard were covered in airplane fuel which had got all over the boat deck. This reminded me of my boots and I quickly snapped a photo of my Falcons. I later learned the aircraft was a Mexican Navy plane that was transporting a burn victim from Mexico to a local hospital which is a world renowned burn center. Unfortunately, the deceased 2 year old was the victim being transported and that explained the burn marks I saw. The female we transported was a nurse who was apart of the military transport team. Thankfully she is currently still alive. In total there were 8 passengers and only 2 survived. A truly tragic event. May god bless their souls. I arrived back at the dock to find my truck was blocked by fire trucks well into the late of the night. When I finally got back home I told my wife the crazy story. She just looked at me in utter disbelief. This morning I woke up reliving the entire ordeal and remembered the photos I took. Just thought I'd share the crazy experience in my Nicks Falcons!