Alaska Ship Rescue Left No Time to Spare

"We got a little closer and there was a fourth light, then a fifth, and a sixth and the numbers just kept growing. The ocean was flashing at us over about a mile-long stretch."

The Alaska Ranger was gone. It sank within 15 minutes, falling 6,318 feet to the sea floor deep enough to stack the Statue of Liberty and its foundation 20 times over.

The crew members were in survival suits some illuminated in small pods, others alone and life rafts.

Another helicopter and a search plane were slowed by head winds, so it was up to the Jayhawk to perform the pre-dawn initial rescues while the Coast Guard cutter, Munro, and its Dolphin helicopter made their way to the scene.

Petty Officer 2nd Class O'Brien Hollow was attached to a steel cable and lowered into the water to see who needed the most immediate help. He placed 13 survivors into a basket-like gurney and stayed in the water as each was hoisted into the aircraft.

"We were moving 30 to 50 feet sometimes with the swell," Hollow said of the time he was in the water, trying to stay in sync with the helicopter pilot. "We moved left, right, north, south, east, west."

As the 33-year-old Hollow worked, neither the Munro nor the Alaska Warrior had arrived.

But once the cutter got to within 80 miles, it launched its rescue helicopter, the Dolphin, and four crew members, said Munro Capt. Craig Lloyd.

Within 10 minutes, and about three hours after the fishing vessel's mayday call, the Jayhawk approached the cutter with its first group of survivors.

The Jayhawk first tried to take them to the Warrior because the vessel arrived before the Munro, but the Warrior's deck was filled with fishing gear and covered with ice.