NARRAGANSETT,
RI. -- A 35-year-old Orlando man fell overboard from a cruise ship balcony then drifted 15 miles. A Coast Guard computer model contributed to finding the man who was rescued eight hours later.
Michael Mankamyer was found 30 miles off Fort Lauderdale treading water in choppy seas. About eight hours earlier, the 35-year-old Orlando man had fallen from a cruise ship balcony.
Swept along with the strong Gulf Stream currents he quickly drifted away from the ship. The chances of seeing, let alone rescuing a person in open water are very small. But amazingly, at 8:45 a.m., 8 hours after he was reported missing, a lookout on the Coast Guard cutter Chandeleur spotted Mr. Mankamyer floating in the ocean approximately 15 miles from where he fell from the cruise ship.
Nancy Nelsen, a civilian search-and-rescue specialist who works with the Coast Guard's Miami office, credited a new computer model called SAROPS, a powerful system that narrows the search area of a victim lost at sea, with helping to save Mankamyer.
When he was spotted, he was shirtless, splashing and thrashing his arms. The crew threw Mankamyer a life ring; he swam up and grabbed it. "When I saw that he still had the energy to swim, I knew we weren't going to have any problems," said Lt. James Bernstein, commander of the 110-foot Chandeleur.
A Coast Guard helicopter soon arrived and dropped a rescue diver, who helped Mankamyer into a basket.
Providing fast and simple search and rescue predictions while incorporating real-time and forecasted environmental data such as wind and currents, the SAROPS Search and Rescue system developed collaboratively by the US Coast Guard, Northrup Grumman, Metron, and ASA (Applied Science Associates), assisted in finding Mankamyer before complete exhaustion or severe hypothermia set in.
“The software is designed to minimize data entry and potential for error, resulting in more efficient victim recovery than ever before,” explains Eoin Howlett, ASA’s CEO and lead for the SAROPS development.
ASA developed the crucial Environmental Data Server (EDS) component of SAROPS, which very quickly aggregates and feeds meteorological and hydrodynamic conditions to the SAROPS system. In search and rescue incidents at sea, the faster rescuers can get accurate model predictions of search areas, the greater the likelihood is of locating a person in the water while still alive.
“The crew of the Chandeleur demonstrated superb mission execution during the search executing the recently transitioned SAROPS program utilized by the search and rescue coordinators at Coast Guard Sector Miami," said Capt. James O'Connor, chief of search and rescue for Coast Guard District Seven. "Mankamyer was extremely fortunate to have survived the fall from the ship and the ability to remain alive in the water without any survival gear."
Mankamyer, suffering from a collapsed lung and mild hypothermia, was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, where he was treated and is expected to make a full recovery.
An MRI technician at Florida Hospital in Orlando, Mankamyer was on the final leg of a weeklong Caribbean cruise with his 16-year-old godson, Salvie Wega of Orlando.
Sister Gina, 44, said that when she and relatives received word early Friday that he had gone overboard, they were hysterical. "We were already thinking about having to plan a funeral without a body."
Then came the astounding news: He had been rescued.
In addition to its Narragansett, RI headquarters,
ASA has offices in Australia and Brazil.. The company's
website, www.asascience.com, contains numerous scientific
reports written by its staff and extensive information
about its services.
For more information, contact Lee
Dooley by email, ldooley@asascience.com
or by phone (401)789-6224.
