Good Samaritans, FD rescue capsized boaters
Four boaters were pulled to safety in a good Samaritan rescue after their 19-foot, Key Largo, capsized in Long Island Sound near Duck Pond Point on Sunday, June 22.
The 911 call came into Southold Town Police dispatch at 5:49 p.m. Sunday evening, when one of the boaters reported the boat was taking on water and sinking rapidly.
Cutchogue Fire Department members and police spotted the boaters, all wearing life jackets, clinging to their submerged boat roughly a half-mile off shore when they arrived. The four boaters —Jordan Miranda, 30; Steven Benavivez, 31; Pedro Ramirez, 50; and Randal Mirando, 54 — are all Hampton Bays residents.
Before the Cutchogue Fire Department’s marine unit arrived, an alert boater, Ara Araian, 46, of Passaic, N.J., spotted the boaters in the water and quickly motored over to rescue them.
“They raced over to them, and they were able to go and get them onto their boat,” Cutchogue Fire Department Chief Michael Boken said.
The three good Samaritans on the boat — Mr. Araian, and Southold residents Evan Ozdemir, 18, and John Ozdemir, 23 — pulled the four men to safety on board and brought them back to shore. There, they were evaluated by emergency medical personnel.
Chief Boken said two of the men were cold and were given blankets, with a third reporting seasickness. The four men refused further medical treatment.
The Mattituck Fire Department was also called to assist in the rescue with their boat. The Southold Town Police Department drone and marine units provided additional assistance. Sea Tow towed the capsized Key Largo to shore, Southold Police Department Chief Steven Grattan said.
The rescue took place at the same location of a heroic Cutchogue Fire Department rescue on July 6, 2023, when a boat with four teenagers aboard needed rescuing when their outward motor propeller became entangled with the anchor line, as previously reported by The Suffolk Times.
Two of the teenagers, a boy and girl, had jumped off that boat without life jackets and soon found themselves caught up in the strong current. The fast actions of the Cutchogue Fire Department saved the lives of the teens set adrift into the open water two summers ago.
