Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 5, 1993 TAG: 9308050263
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
"I was hugging that thing like I don't know what," Weeks said later from a bed in the DePaul Medical Center's emergency room. "I was like a cat in a tree."
Before a 41-foot Coast Guard launch rescued him shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday, Weeks floated, swam and finally latched onto the bridge piling in an effort to save himself from drowning. Officials said Weeks was in the water for about 2 1/2 hours.
"I was scared to death out there," said Weeks, his tattooed arms and legs scratched by the barnacle-encrusted pilings and welted with jellyfish stings. "I really didn't think I could make it."
Weeks' ordeal began when he and his daughter, 11-year-old Kimberly Dawn, went for a swim about 7 p.m. Tuesday in front of the Ocean View Holiday Inn, where the Weeks family is vacationing. Three hours earlier, Weeks had waded with his wife and daughter far out in the water at the same location and had no trouble swimming back to shore.
But by Tuesday evening, the weather had taken a turn for the worse, Weeks said, and the currents had changed. When he tried to swim back toward the spot where his daughter was standing, Weeks made no progress.
"I wasn't getting anywhere," Weeks said.
When Weeks began bobbing in the water, and lightning began to appear in the sky, his daughter ran for help.
Would-be rescuers scurried along the Ocean View beachfront in futile attempts to help, but Weeks continued drifting farther and farther from shore.
The only location that Weeks thought he could reach, he said, was the bridge-tunnel.
"It may sound dumb, but I thought I might be able to climb up on the bridge, if I could reach it," Weeks said.
He realized a climb was impossible when he drifted to one of the pilings and was able to grip it only enough to keep his head above water.
"I did everything I could to hold onto that," he said. "And I was just praying all the time. I told God I would never do anything wrong again."
Weeks worried, he said, that his cries for help would go unheard. But several people reported to the Coast Guard that they had heard cries from somebody clinging to one of the pilings at the bridge-tunnel.
According to Lt. Scott Decker of the Portsmouth Coast Guard station, two launches and a helicopter were dispatched to Ocean View to search for Weeks. Both launches converged on Weeks' location about the same time.
When Weeks saw the launches, he let go of his piling and tried to swim to the boat.
"That was a mistake," Weeks said. "I began swallowing water and was going under."
But one of the launches was close enough for one member of the rescue team to swim to Weeks and attach a rescue line.
"Those guys in the Coast Guard must be top-notch," Weeks said. "I'd give those guys anything, even my motorcycle - and that's saying a lot."
When his wife was asked if her husband's swimming skill was instrumental in his survival, Debra Ann Weeks shook her head.
"He's more of a couch potato than anything else," she said. "He's just lucky, is what he is."
Wednesday afternoon, Weeks visited his rescuer, Seaman Victor Kumalae, at the Little Creek Coast Guard Station.
"If it hadn't been for that man . . . if he hadn't of done it when he did, I wouldn't be here right now," Weeks said.
"I just had to meet him. It touched me so much. . . . God, he's one hell of a man."
by CNB