Randy White - Twelve Mile Limit

When I asked if the Coast Guard or the family of Michael Sanford had asked the salvage company to refloat the boat, his terse reply-“Absolutely not”-told me he was pissed off about it and would tell me more later.

That night, after the Coast Guard suspended what had been one of the most massive sea searches in the history of South Florida, JoAnn Smallwood came tippy-toe a’creeping up onto the stern deck where I was lying on the companion bench seat under a light blanket. She put her hand on my shoulder and whispered, “You asleep?”

I said, “I wish I could sleep. I truly do.”

“I know, it’s impossible and I can’t stand it anymore. You mind some company?”

JoAnn and I have had a long and mutual sexual chemistry that we have carefully and successfully battled-dating within the communal marina family is much too risky-but this had to do with friendship, not physical attraction, so I scooched over and made room for the lady. I felt the heat of her skin on my bare legs, felt the bosomy softness beneath her T-shirt as she pulled herself close, using my chest for a pillow. Her breath was warmer than the wind as she said into my ear, “Should we go say something to him? How long can he keep that up?”

From the guest stateroom forward, muted by bulkheads of fiberglass and wood, came a booming thud-a-thud-a-thud backdropped by the sound of a grown man sobbing. It was Jeth, banging his fist or his head against the hull as he cried.

I said, “No. We’ve got to let him get it out in his own way. But after this, when we get home, we need to keep a close eye on him. There are all kinds of ways for people to self-destruct. I’d say he’s a prime candidate.”

She laid there quietly for a couple of minutes, holding me tight, hearing the wind, hearing Jeth, before she said, “What I hate to even think about, Doc, is that Janet’s still out there. Still alive and hoping we’ll find her, but that we haven’t looked in the right place. God, it just kills me when I think of that! Makes me feel so helpless.”

I hadn’t yet said anything to anyone about what I felt the chances were of Janet surviving for even twenty-four hours adrift in the Gulf of Mexico, but now I did. Maybe I shouldn’t have. I’m far from being an expert on human physiology, but because I’ve done a fair amount of diving, I’ve read the basic literature on survival at sea. Rightly or wrongly, I attempted to comfort her, because false hope is a common source of human pain.

I said, “Trust me, JoAnn, you don’t need to think about that anymore. You know about tropic hypothermia? Warm water hypothermia, it’s the same thing. I need to look it up again to be sure of the details, but I think I’m pretty close. Tropic hypothermia you get in water that’s eighty-two, eighty-three degrees, and it feels like bathwater. Stay in for a couple of hours, and you won’t even notice that your body’s core temperature is gradually dropping to match the temperature of the water. But that’s what happens.

“I didn’t memorize the tables exactly, but in water that’s in the low eighties, even a healthy person might survive for only twenty-four hours or so. I checked it our first day out-the water temp here’s seventy-seven degrees. I doubt that Janet or the other two made it through the second night still conscious.”

I was wrong, as I would learn later. Absolutely wrong in the face of the facts and the newest research data. Like mostly poorly informed people, though, I spoke with a conviction so firm that JoAnn was convinced.

“Oh God, Doc, that’s so sad. But they were wearing wet suits… wouldn’t that make it-”

“Janet showed me her wet suit before she did her first open-water dive, her new pink one with the black panels. Remember when she did that trip to Key Largo? It’s a shorty, covered just her thighs and upper body. A warm-water suit. I’m not sure how thick the neoprene was, but it wasn’t real thick. Two, maybe three millimeters, which is about pretty typical for tropical water divers.

“The other two people were wearing similar wet suits, according to my Coast Guard pals. Michael Sanford’s was blue and black, Grace Walker’s was blue and green, and Janet’s, at least, was a high-visibility pink. What people forget is that human beings are not built for the water. We are land creatures. Water removes heat from the body about twenty-five times faster than cold air, and most of that heat loss occurs through the head. Swimming, thrashing around, or struggling in water increases heat loss. And you know how rough it is out here.”

“Do I ever. The way we’ve gotten banged around, I’ll be sore for a week.” I felt JoAnn’s body move as she sighed heavily. “Then she’s dead. Janet’s dead. That’s what you’re saying. You’ve known all along.”

“If she’s still in the water, that’d be my guess. But like I said, I need to go back and do some research. I have a friend out west who used to be the Coast Guard’s surgeon general. The equivalent of it, anyway. He’s done a lot of research on hypothermia, so I need to give him a call.”

“I almost hate to ask, but I have to. Doc, how would it have been for her? Those last hours?”

I’d thought a lot about it. When you lose someone tragically that you care about, much of the anguish comes from imagining their anguish during their final moments. So I gave JoAnn an edited version. But not edited much. I told her that the body is an amazing thing-it’s got lots of ways to conserve heat. When we’re exposed to cool water, small blood vessels near the skin’s surface automatically constrict to keep blood flow away from the outer tissues. That’s true of the entire body except for the brain, which needs unrestricted blood flow. Which is why the blood vessels of the head do not constrict and why heat is lost most quickly from the area of the head.

“So her first major organ affected,” I said, “was her brain. She probably got confused, then drowsy. More than likely, she just fell asleep. Once her core temp got below… I think it’s ninety-five degrees, once her core temperature got below that, her heartbeat would have become erratic, and then, finally, it would have stopped. But, like I said, she’d have been asleep by that time.”

“So it wouldn’t have been that bad for her and the others?”

“No,” I lied. “Not that bad at all.”

We lay there in silence for a time. Beyond the canvas canopy I’d rigged to keep off the dew, I could see the black horizon lifting, pausing, then falling out of a black sky. I wondered as I’d wondered before: What had it been like for Janet? As I wrestled with all the horrible scenarios, Janet was there in memory, her pudgy, girlish face alive in my mind and her sensitive eyes, green and kind, looking directly into mine.

I remembered the smell of the musky perfume she sometimes wore. Remembered the distinctive cocoa-butter scent of body cream, and how, when she was excited or telling a joke, she punctuated her sentences by combing her fingers through her hair. I remembered that the first time Janet made me laugh, really laugh, was a couple of weeks after she’d been working in the lab, and she accidentally let it slip that she’d named each and every one of my fish. Janet had made me laugh many times after that, and she’d confided in me and encouraged me. She’d brought me little handmade presents at Christmas and dyed eggs with silly faces at Easter. In front of others, she’d slapped me on the ass at dock parties, and, when she knew I was stressed, she’d come quietly up behind me and massage the muscles of my neck and shoulders. Janet was a good woman, and she had been a good and true friend.

I thought that JoAnn had drifted off to sleep when, suddenly, she spoke again. “Do you hear it?”