‘A lot of adrenaline.’ Stamford Yacht Club staff members rescue fishermen caught in squall
Two Stamford Yacht Club staff members are being called heroes after rescuing four fishermen from the water over the weekend. It happened after a squall suddenly rolled through Saturday in the early evening.
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Two Stamford Yacht Club staff members are being called heroes after rescuing four fishermen from the water over the weekend. It happened after a squall suddenly rolled through Saturday in the early evening.
Michael Cipollone, 19, a member of the Marine Team at the yacht club, was working at the time—a shift he described as “pretty calm” up until that point.
“I got a radio that I had to go pick up a boat that was along the shoreline, and as I was heading out, it started sprinkling, and then within the minute, it just all came down—a big wall of water,” Cipollone recalled.
He said it was so bad that he had to abandon his pickup and turn around.
“As I was on my way back, I heard a whistle. I look over to my right and left, and I notice that there's four men capsized trying to get onto their boat which had just capsized. They're screaming, ‘Help! Help! We can't swim!’” Cipollone told News 12.
He said the men didn’t have life jackets on and were struggling to stay afloat, so he alerted another member of the Marine Team. Twade Foster headed out to help. Cipollone said he and Foster were each able to lift two men into their boats.
“I had a lot of adrenaline going through, but I knew what to do. I radioed in to my coworker and between the two of us we got the four men safely out of the water,” Cipollone explained.
He and Foster then went back out to get the fishermen’s boat. Cipollone told News 12 they kept saying, "We owe you our lives."
Cipollone credited his training but also said he thinks it was fate that he got that call for a pickup right before the storm.
“If not, we would've never seen four guys with a capsized boat with that weather condition. It was meant to be,” he said.
