capsized in rough waters<\/a>, leaving them stranded miles from shore until firefighters rescued them.<\/p>\nBrock Britenstine says he feared he would die after the boat began taking on water.<\/p>\n
“I told my brother right off the rip, ‘I’m going to die today,'” Britenstine recalled.<\/p>\n
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The brothers had been fishing when they hit several large waves. “We hit a couple of waves hard,” Britenstine said. Soon after, they realized the boat was filling with water.<\/p>\n
“I’m like, ‘I think we’re taking on water, man,'” he remembered telling his brother. “He goes, ‘Yeah, me too.'”<\/p>\n
As the boat continued to sink, Britenstine’s brother was able to put on a life jacket. Britenstine was not.<\/p>\n
“I told him, ‘I’m going to die today, because I have no life vest, the water is really bad,’ and we figured the boat would go down instantly,” he said.<\/p>\n
The brothers also believed they had no way to call for help.<\/p>\n
“We couldn’t get ahold of the two-way radio,” Britenstine told 3News. “I don’t have my phone on the boat at all; it’s in the truck. His phone, he couldn’t find it.”<\/p>\n
Britenstine treaded water while first holding onto a buoy and later clinging to the partially submerged boat as waves continued to crash over him.<\/p>\n
“My neck and head’s the only thing sticking out of the water, and the waves keep coming over, and I’d almost go underwater,” he said.<\/p>\n
Then came an unexpected break: Britenstine’s brother discovered his cellphone in the pocket of his cargo shorts. Despite being soaked, it still worked.<\/p>\n
“He said, ‘Call 911.’ And it called 911 and I could hear him talking, but he’s shaking the phone because it’s got water in the speaker,” Britenstine said.<\/p>\n
The call allowed emergency dispatchers to direct rescuers to the brothers’ location.<\/p>\n
Members of the Avon Lake Fire Department rescued the brothers from the water. Britenstine said he was exhausted by the time crews reached him.<\/p>\n
“The rescue swimmer was the guy that got me,” he shared. “He said, ‘Jump! Jump off!’ and I said, ‘I can’t. I don’t have nothing left in me.'”<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, the Avon Lake Fire Department demonstrated the type of water rescue training<\/a> crews use to respond to emergencies like the one Britenstine experienced.\u00a0<\/p>\n“I am so glad they have a program,” Britenstine said. “Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Britenstine is recovering at home following the rescue and from hernia surgery he underwent Monday. He hopes others can learn from his experience. His advice is simple: Don’t just bring a life jacket \u2014 you need to wear it. After surviving the ordeal, Britenstine says he will never go out on the water again without wearing one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Lake Erie fishing trip turned dire when two brothers’ boat capsized in rough waters, but one brother’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-252940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}