He had no life jacket and no safety line. The boom knocked the solo sailor overboard, stunning him. Automatically he trod water in the 66deg F (18deg Celsius) Lake Erie and went on treading all night long. Twelve hours later, he was rescued - his number just wasn't up.
47 year old Paul Epp Jr., of Welland, Ontario, somehow managed to stay afloat in the lake from Saturday night until 11:45 a.m. Sunday morning when he was rescued by Canadian and U.S. authorities who had spent the entire night searching for him.
When rescuers plucked Epp from the waters, he was alert, talking, and suffering from mild hypothermia. The lake temperature off of Buffalo is 66 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. Epp was being treated today in Port Colborne General Hospital where he is expected to survive.
'He's very lucky and he was very determined to keep his head above the water and keep treading water,' said James Cox, an operational controller for the U.S. Coast Guard in Buffalo. 'His father said he was hit by the boom,' said Cox. 'He was stunned. He didn't know that he hit the water at first and he tread water all night long.'
A Good Samaritan spotted Epp clinging to a breakwall off of Port Colborne about 11:45 a.m. today and tried to reach him, but when he was unable to pull him out of the water, he notified officials.
Two helicopters, one from U.S. Coast Guard and the other from the Canadian Coast Guard, that had been in the area searching for him all night, rushed to the scene.
The U.S. helicopter arrived first, hovered over the man, and a rescue swimmer inside the aircraft tried to reach him -- but to no avail. Minutes later, the Canadian helicopter landed on the breakwall and pulled Epp out of the water. He was flown to the hospital for treatment.
'He was alert enough to give us his name and tell us the name of his boat,' said Cox. 'We were lucky that the Good Samaritan spotted him closer to land.'
The massive search, which had spanned 11 and a half hours, covered about 400 square miles of Lake Erie in the air and on the water. Epp's unoccupied sail boat was found drifting near Sunset Bay in Chautauqua County on the American side of the border at about 11:45 p.m. Saturday, but authorities now believe that Epp spent the entire night in Canadian waters.
Authorities believe Epp set sail from the Welland Canal in Port Colborne, Ont., just before 6:30 p.m. Saturday and headed south. But when he fell overboard about six-and-a-half miles from the coast, somewhere between 6:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., he swam back to the coast, according to Cox.
Chautauqua County sheriff's deputies said their boat was patrolling Lake Erie when they found the sailboat traveling south from the Canadian waters towards the U.S.
Cox said he believes that the search team likely flew over Epp during the search, but did not see him in the darkness.
'It's a fantastic outcome,' said Cox. 'We're very lucky that he was able to stay afloat that long.'
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