New Fire Rescue Boat Aids In Gulf Rescue Of 3

A Coast Guard crew prepares to pull Craig and Lisa Platt from their water-swamped boat off Egmont Key. They and another man, found by a fire rescue boat, were in the water overnight.

By PETER MASA / WFLA

By STEPHEN THOMPSON The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jul 19, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - A new city fire department boat, purchased courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security, made its first rescue in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday. And it wasn't even on a mission yet.

A district chief for St. Petersburg Fire & Rescue was teaching firefighters how to pilot the vessel to points on a computerized navigational chart when the crew happened upon a man adrift about five miles off Egmont Key, the nearest land.

The man, Renaldo Puig, 40, was floating on a child's swimming raft and using a flipper as an oar. Once plucked from Gulf waters, he alerted authorities to a couple also stranded at sea, District Chief Gerard Chalmers and witnesses said.

The couple - Craig Platt, 44, and his wife, Lisa, 41 - were rescued by the Coast Guard one to two miles from where Puig was found, Chalmers said. The two were found in a boat swamped with water, authorities and witnesses said.

The three appeared to have suffered from dehydration and exposure from their overnight stay in the Gulf but were otherwise all right, said Lt. Brad Dykens of St. Petersburg Fire & Rescue.

"I'm very happy that we have people like these to come out and pick us up and get us back home," Craig Platt said as he was wheeled in a stretcher from a Fort DeSoto Park pier to an awaiting ambulance. "It's a little scary and cold, and you're just ready to go home and you don't know if anybody's coming today, tomorrow or next week."

All three declined treatment at Bayfront Medical Center, Dykens said.

Authorities said the three, all from Manatee County, set sail from Anna Maria Island about 4 p.m Tuesday.

The boat started taking on water about two hours later after a wave smacked the vessel and dislodged the boat's plug.

The three were within sight of Fort DeSoto Park, so Puig used the small raft to try to paddle to the park, but the current carried him farther into the Gulf.

Puig had been in the water for about 17 hours when he was rescued.

Platt told reporters a radio and cell phone onboard were useless after they got wet when the wave swamped the boat.

It was not known whether the three told anyone where they were going. No one had reported them missing when Puig turned up, Chalmers said.

News Channel 8 reporter Rod Challenger contributed to this report. Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336 or spthompson@

tampatrib.com.