Drone photographer Mike Busch was simply planning to take his dogs to the beach and hopefully see some seals with his drone on Feb. 25 – the day he wound up being a hero.
Busch saw something out of the ordinary – two kayakers in the middle of the Moriches Inlet with an outgoing tide – but figured they knew what they were doing, and put his drone up in the air to see if he could find any seals.
“I thought to myself, ‘Wow, that’s kind of crazy,’ but kept looking the other way for seals,” Busch wrote on his Great South Bay Images Facebook page. “Eventually, one of the kayakers came up close to me and casually asked if I saw his friend. I zoomed out and saw him capsized and getting sucked out of the inlet.”
Busch sprang into action and called 911, but hovered his drone directly over the kayaker who was being pulled out to sea. The man was roughly three quarters of a mile in the open ocean while Busch kept watch on him.
A Suffolk County Police Department helicopter joined, and Busch pulled his drone back. The Moriches Bay Marine Task Force, which includes the Eastport Fire Department, responded to the scene and was able to rescue the kayaker.
“Westhampton Beach Chief Darryl Schunk was in command of the operation and oversaw the operations at the East Moriches Coast Guard Station which was designated as the command post location,” an Eastport Fire Department Facebook post reads. “[An] Eastport Fire Department vessel, with ex-Chief Mark Yakaboski as the coxswain, along with his three-member crew were able to transit the inlet in less than 10 minutes and rescue the victim from the water. Lieutenant [Joseph] Dalen, a rescue swimmer, entered the water to assist in recovering the victim, who was suffering from hypothermia.”
The kayaker, whose name has not been released, was taken into the helicopter and airlifted to Stony Brook Hospital, and is expected to make a full recovery.
“The guy was airlifted to Stony Brook and apparently is fine,” Busch said. “If he didn’t have a dry suit on, he would have been a goner. Great job by the first responders.”
