SEATTLE (AP) — A man who was rescued by Coast Guard rescue swimmers at the mouth of the Columbia River on Friday said a giant wave rolled over the yacht he was piloting and police left dead fish behind. Wanted for the incident. The house in Astoria, Oregon that was the setting for the 1985 classic movie The Goonies.
According to Astoria Police Chief Stacy Kelly, the police have since learned that an acquaintance knew of a video he posted on social media of him leaving fish at home and dancing on the property. was looking for a man
Kelly identified the man as Jericho Labonte, 35, of Victoria, British Columbia.Labonte is also wanted in British Columbia for criminal harassment, mischief and default since last fall, Kelly said. It says.
Early Friday afternoon, the Coast Guard shared a stunning video of the rescue made hours earlier. In this video, a newly minted rescue swimmer was cabled down from a helicopter and swam onto her 35-foot (11-metre) yacht, which had been plagued by violent waves. As the swimmers approached the ship, a large wave crashed into it, causing it to roll over and throwing a man, later identified as Labonte, into the water.
A swimmer from Greenville, South Carolina, Petty Officer First Officer Walton arrived at Labonte and pulled him to safety. A helicopter crew flew him to Coast Guard Station Astoria, where doctors treated him for mild hypothermia and took him to a hospital.
A yacht owner in nearby Warrenton, Oregon, reported the boat was stolen late Friday, the police chief said.
The hospital had already released Labonte when police saw Coast Guard photos and videos, and they said police had left a dead fish under cover on the Goonies home’s security cameras and on the porch. I realized I was the same person.
Police were still looking for Labonte on Friday night.
Kelly said he didn’t know what kind of fish it was, but police believed it was caught locally after another person reported fishing for Labonte after the video began to circulate.
“It was a really weird 48 hours,” Kelly said.
The mouth of the Columbia River, North America’s largest river that flows into the Pacific Ocean, is known as the “Graveyard of the Pacific” because of its notoriously rough seas. The Coast Guard received a Mayday call for the yacht around 10am on Friday while conducting training nearby. Petty Officer Michael Clarke said.
Mayday did not contain any information about the location or specific issues, but officials roughly triangulated the ship’s location and the crew of nearby boats, and helicopters responded.
They found that the P/C Sandpiper yacht was getting water at 20 feet (6 meters) of sea. This means that waves from the valley ahead can be as high as 40 feet (12 meters), Clark said.
Walton, a recent graduate of the Coast Guard’s rescue swim program, was lowered from the helicopter by a cable. Labonte climbs to the stern and prepares to enter the water, just as a huge wave hits the ship and throws him into the waves. The waves lashed so hard that the ship overturned completely and was rolled upright.
In an interview Friday, Walton said he planned to contact the man, take him underwater, and hook him to a cable attached to the helicopter.
“I kind of got swept away by the waves. As I got closer, I noticed the boat was pretty disorganized,” Walton said.
He directed a helicopter to take him to Labonte after spotting him on a wave some distance away. According to Walton, the force of the waves nearly stripped him of his life jacket.