- A 63-year-old man was swept out to sea during a morning swim and forced to tread water for five hours.
- The man was finally rescued by a fishing boat after he jury-rigged a flag out of a busted fishing pole.
A New York man who was pulled out to sea during a morning swim treaded water for five hours before he was ultimately rescued by a passing fishing boat, police said on Tuesday.
Dan Ho, 63, was swimming in the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island's Cedar Beach at around 5 a.m. on Monday when he suddenly got caught in a strong current and was pulled out to sea, the Suffolk County Police Department said in a statement.
Ho treaded water for about five hours straight before he discovered a broken fishing pole floating in the ocean and used it to jury-rig a flag, authorities said.
The man "tied his shirt to it and waved the shirt in the air in an attempt to notify passing vessels of his presence," Suffolk County police said.
Ho was finally spotted by two men on a fishing boat about 2.5 miles south of where the swimmer first got in the water, the police department said.
The fishermen, identified by authorities as Jim Hohorst and Michael Ross, tossed Ho a life ring and pulled him up on their boat.
"He was just treading water, praying some boat would come by," Ross told WABC. "I can tell you, no boats in the area, not for miles."
Ross told the news outlet that Ho was turning blue and gray.
"He was shaking, totally hyperthermic," Ross said, explaining that he and Hohorst "wrapped him in towels."
Authorities said Hohorst called for help over a marine radio and two Suffolk County officers quickly moved Ho into a police boat.
"He was in shock and pretty incoherent at the time," Hohorst, a retired New York City firefighter, told Newsday.
The situation was dire, Hohorst added.
"We figured he had maybe an hour left," Hohorst told Newsday. "He was very hypothermic and said he had been drinking a lot of salt water."
Police said Ho was "conscious and alert but unable to stand" at the time and he was treated for hypothermia.
The US Coast Guard's Fire Island station brought Ho to shore and the man was taken to a local hospital in West Islip.