Last night we showed you exclusive video of a tourist being rescued before dawn on Thursday morning. He was adrift and alone in the waters west of Caye Caulker. He had drifted there after trying to swim across the split to get to his condo at the Blue Zen resort on the island's Northside. It was probably terrible idea from the start - but the northerly breeze blowing made it much worse because that pushed a strong current through the split - and it pushed him way west of the island.
But while the current was against him, he had two things going for him. First, a man who was fishing at the split, saw him jump in the water, and, second he had a waterproof cell phone.
45 minutes later, when he didn't re-appear that fisher called on a fisherman with a boat who could still see the tourist's cell phone light bobbing in the water. Via phone, he told us what happened next:
Voice of: Karl Burgess, Rescued Tourist At Sea
"On Thursday morning, 4 a.m. I was basically sleeping because it was in the morning and I had a guy that came up to me and said that they had a guy that was swimming at the split and ended up all the way like really at least a mile from the island or more I guess because he was really really far and we literally went out and as soon as we got like maybe 15 feet or 20 feet from the guy then that's when I pull out my phone."
"I'm like no this guy is actually not joking. There's a guy out there. And we found the guy out there. He was literally like just floating. He was done. He didn't even knew or know that we were beside him until like we were like stomping on the boat or something and he just got up and like oh. He was done. He was on his last."
Jules Vasquez
"Wow, how did you find him in the sea? It's pitch dark at 4 a.m."
Voice of: Karl Burgess, Rescued Tourist At Sea
"So he was lucky because he had his cell phone He had his cell phone, but he had it in his hand and holding it up. So basically we saw the light."
Jules Vasquez
"So you probably saved a man's life."
Voice of: Karl Burgess, Rescued Tourist At Sea
"Well, that's normal Caye Caulker vibes out there. We are always there for anything, fire anything, we are go slow. We love each other. We are one community."
Burgess dropped the tourist off at the Blue Zen after he rescued him.
