(WECT, 2023)
The headline says it all… Monday August 14, 2023 four divers were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard. They were swept away from their surface boat location and found themselves adrift alone out in the open Atlantic ocean over 46 miles from Cape Fear, N.C. in the pitch black darkness at 12:45 a.m.
To their credit… these divers had the smart sense to carry a personal strobe with them when they started their dive for this very contingency. Personal strobes, such as Tekna’s Lite 6, or even a smaller device such as our Safety Strobe when diving are one of the most useful and helpful safety devices divers can carry with them on their dive. Our sister site Tek-tite.com has the more powerful and highly recommended Strobe 3500 that will flash a SOS signal as well. No diver should be on a dive without one. Even during the daytime, strobes can be seen from many miles away.
As these divers found out… their specially designed strobe flashed a SOS signal in Morse code which was spotted by the Coast Guard C-130 rescue aircraft sent to find them in the dark. The C-130 pilots promptly notified USCG watercraft of their location while the rescuers in the back were able to drop the divers a rescue flotation raft. This gave the divers survival time for the rescue ship to arrive at their location.
Because of their strobes… this story has a happy ending.
