NC fishermen escape sinking boat, spend 14 hours in Pamlico Sound

Kenny Rustick has spent 33 years as a commercial fisherman but, Tuesday afternoon, the dangers of the profession swelled with an oncoming storm.

“I told William, I said, ‘Get out, we’re going to lose her right now, get out,’” Rustick said.

Rustick and William Grant were shrimping out in the Pamlico Sound. Around 4 p.m. Tuesday, his boat, The Mad Lady 2, began to take on water. One of his stabilizers broke and about 17,000 pounds of shrimp all slid to one side of the boat.

“She eventually had too much,” Rustick said.

Rustick yelled to Grant, who escaped out the cabin’s back door.

“And the boat rolled over right then. I was still in the cabin and it had flooded with water and I was able to get the window opened,” Rustick said.

Just in time, Rustick escaped. The men were able to grab a cooler with drinks and held on to a large floating lid.

“We got to save our lives and think about ourselves and our families and we didn’t want to panic. We kept each other alert all through the night,” Rustick said.

The men spent 14 hours floating and treading in the Pamlico Sound, but the Coast Guard located them when daylight broke Wednesday.

“I want to thank everybody for their thoughts and prayers, thank the Coast Guard and I want to thank everybody that came out searching for us from Engelhard to Carteret County,” Rustick said.