Five scuba divers struggling in the water for hours off the Hawaiian coast were rescued last Wednesday by a sailing couple that heard their screams for help and found “five little dots” in the vast ocean.
Camila Storchi and her husband were on their sailboat traveling from Kaneohe to Honolulu when they heard the desperate pleas coming from the water, she told local station Hawaii News Now.
The scuba divers were separated from their boat during the excursion, leading the group to hang onto each other in a bid for survival.
“We were passing Hanauma and going around China Walls,” Storchi told the local outlet. “He heard screaming for help and he started scanning the ocean and we saw five little dots.”
She said in an Instagram post that the couple raced toward the group where one of the divers was “gray, hypothermia, throwing up.”
But the couple could not safely bring the five aboard safely, so they instead quickly alerted the Coast Guard and circled around them for 45 minutes before rescuers arrived.
Storchi said on social media she and her husband were “talking, offering water and keeping them in good spirits.”
She posted a video of the dramatic discovery in which the five people were decked out in their scuba gear as the waves rolled by.
When a Coast Guard helicopter arrived, the boat that the five scuba divers belonged to showed up at the same time.
“The helicopter arrived on scene and relayed the position to the (dive boat) who transited to the location and picked up the divers,” the Coast Guard said in a statement to the HNN.
The Coast Guard added the boat “lost” the five divers, but heard over the radio they were found by the sailboat.
The diving company, Aaron’s Dive Shop, told the station it was reviewing what happened and protocols to prevent another near tragedy.
