According to the US Coast Guard a 71-foot fishing boat based in Cape May was sank off the New Jersey coast on Tuesday 24 March morning, killing at least one person and leaving four others missing in near-freezing water. It is said that the rescue team has take out three people safely from the ocean 75 miles off southern New Jersey. The Lady Mary, a 71-foot fishing boat based in Cape May was carrying seven people off New Jersey coast. Senior Petty Officer Stephen Carleton, a Coast Guard spokesman informed that one was dead, another unresponsive, and a third conscious and alert. He added that they had been in the water for an hour before a helicopter launched from a Coast Guard station in Atlantic City reached them, said Petty Officer Andrew Kendrick. Kendrick also opined that the conscious crew member told that all seven of the crew members donned survival suits and abandoned ship. The crew member did not say whether mechanical problems, weather or some other cause foundered the ship. It is observed that the waves were 4 to 7 feet high when the boat sank. The water temperature was 40 degrees and the air temperature 33 — conditions that would rapidly kill anyone without a survival suit. Kendrick also said that the rescuers received a transmission from an emergency radio beacon around 7:30 a.m. and launched helicopters to search for survivors. He further said when the first helicopter reached the spot where the transmission originated, rescuers found an empty life raft and three people in the water, all wearing lifesaving suits. The three were hoisted aboard a helicopter and taken to a hospital, where one was confirmed dead. The condition of the person who was unresponsive was not immediately available.
