Times of the Islands Summer 2024

2:30 PM
Out of the blue, a US Coast
Guard helicopter showed
up and circled around. At
one point, it appeared to
drop low and hover just
a couple of hundred feet
above the waves. Kell and
Tim thought for a moment
that the chopper may
have spotted someone.
Tim radioed the helicopter
several times to find out
but received no response.
After about 45 minutes,
it too departed, unable
to find anyone, even
with sophisticated sensor
equipment onboard.
3:15 PM
As daylight was running
out, Kell noticed mist
spraying into the air just
ahead. At first he thought
it might be a humpback
whale that had arrived
early in the season. But the spray turned out to be from
a dolphin. Soon, two other dolphins appeared off the
starboard side of the boat moving in the same northerly
direction. On a whim and out of curiosity, Kell decided to
follow them and gently nudged the throttle forward out of
neutral. After a couple of minutes, the dolphins suddenly
veered right and that’s when Kell, Anthony, and Jervis
heard a woman scream, “Help, help!”
In the water just in front of them, they saw Valecia
and then Ellington and Ronny huddled together. Anthony
and Jervis threw out a life ring attached to a rope, pulled
them toward the boat and helped them all onboard. Kell
hit his GPS to mark the location at N 21°13.644 / W071°
15.509. That put them 17.5 miles southeast of Grand
Turk which showed they had drifted about a mile and a
half northwest from their crash site.
After the rescue pilot Ellington Osborne and Valecia Osborne were shivering with cold but only suffered
minor cuts from the crash.
The three survivors on board were shivering and had
suffered some cuts from the crash. Jervis brought them
towels and blankets while Anthony opened a medical kit
to treat them for cuts. But Ellington waived them off and
said, “My brother Lesroy is missing. He got loose from us
and drifted off. We have to find him.” Kell looked around
from the flybridge and again saw dolphins just ahead.
This time he knew they were telling him something, and
he steered the boat in their direction. After following the
dolphins for a quarter of a mile, Kell spotted Lesroy in his
life jacket, right where the animals had taken him.
Anthony and Jervis pulled Lesroy on board too where
he received big hugs from Ellington, Valecia, and Ronny.
Suffering from hypothermia after nearly four hours in the
water, all four survivors were in a daze and needed to
warm up. For Kell, Anthony, and Jervis, the miraculous
moment began to sink in. They knew that no one should
have survived the crash and nor should any of them have
been found in the rough, chilly sea. Yet here they were,
face to face with four souls who had somehow defied the
long odds. They felt a deep sense of satisfaction and were
keenly aware of the role played by friendly dolphins.
Indeed, according to the Whale and Dolphin
Conservation Society, recorded stories of dolphins protecting
humans date back to ancient Greece. In recent
decades, there have been several accounts of dolphins
protecting swimmers and surfers from sharks as well as
nudging a drowning child back to the safety of a boat.
ANTHONY FORBES—TRIPLE A EVENT PHOTOGRAPHY
Times of the Islands Summer 2024 51