THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 7, 1994 TAG: 9411070226
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SMITH ISLAND LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
A Portsmouth man swam through open water and waded through waist-deep muck in a seven-hour trek Sunday to get help a day after he, his wife and their year-old daughter became stranded on a desolate Eastern Shore Island.
Brian K. Wall and his wife, Cindy B. Wall, both 36, and their infant daughter, Sarah, were left hungry and shaken but otherwise unhurt. He was picked up by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and a Coast Guard helicopter crew made a night landing to retrieve his wife and daughter.
``The Coast Guard crew did a nice job of locating them at night,'' said Petty Officer Joe Dye, a Coast Guard spokesman. ``But it's really the husband that gets the credit. He went through all that to get help.''
The family, enticed by unseasonably pleasant weather, went off on a pleasure trip in a small, inflatable pontoon raft Saturday morning. They reached the eastern side of Myrtle Island, just south of Shipshoal Island, where Brian dropped off Cindy and Sarah. They planned to look around the uninhabited island while he did some oystering.
But as he maneuvered the raft over an oyster bed, one of the pontoons was ripped open. He was barely able to make it back to Myrtle Island.
The family weathered a chilly but warmer-than-normal night. They turned the raft over and used it as shelter. They had no food and saved what little fresh water they had for the baby, said Petty Officer Robin Ressler, another Coast Guard spokesman.
On Sunday morning, with no sign that anyone might come by and spot them, Brian Wall decided to get help, Ressler said.
Much of Myrtle Island is marshland, and as Wall worked his way west he found himself ``up to his butt in muck,'' Dye said. Finally, he made it to open water and swam across to the Eastern Shore where he found an empty farm house. He broke in and called for help. He had traveled at least 5 miles.
``It's a good thing he found that old farmhouse and that it had a phone,'' Dye said, ``because it would have been another four or five miles to another house.''
The Marine Resources Commission contacted the Coast Guard at 6:12 p.m., just after getting Wall's call for help. A helicopter from Elizabeth City was dispatched to find Wall's wife and daughter.
Using directions from Wall, crewman Dorsey Johr spotted the mother and daughter. The helicopter landed and picked them up.
The family was taken to Northampton-Accomack Memorial Hospital. They were released late Sunday. ILLUSTRATION: Staff color map
Myrtle Island,
family stranded
For copy of map, see microfilm
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT BOAT
by CNB