Search efforts were initially fruitless, but then shortly after midnight a Coast Guard airplane spotted an SOS-strobe light while doing a flyover 46 miles southeast of Cape Fear River, North Carolina.
The United States Navy and United States Coast Guard joined forces to make a miraculous rescue early Monday morning.
It was almost 24 hours prior that the Coast Guard received word that four men who had been diving from a pleasure craft approximately 63 miles east of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina near noon had failed to resurface.
Search efforts were initially fruitless, but then shortly after midnight a Coast Guard airplane spotted an SOS-strobe light while doing a flyover 46 miles southeast of Cape Fear River, North Carolina.
The Coast Guard then contacted the crew of the USS Porter as the Navy Destroyer was conducting a training exercise near the location.
A few hours later, the Porter arrived on the scene and rescued the four men from their life raft.
Then, the men were transferred one last time when the Coast Guard arrived on the scene with the 47-foot lifeboat that took the men back to dry land.
“Any time the Coast Guard launches for a search and rescue case, it is always our hope and goal to be able to reunite those we are searching for with their friends and families,” said Capt. Timothy List, commander of Coast Guard Sector North Carolina. “In this case that is exactly what took place, which is always a great feeling for our rescue crews.
The four divers - Ben Wiggins, 64, Luke Lodge, 26, Daniel Williams, 46, and Evan Williams, 16 - were then reunited with their families shortly after 6 a.m. on Monday morning.
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