Paul Carbullido Jr. thought he wasn’t going to survive after he fell from a rented Jet Ski. Photos: ABC7//YouTube
A man from Long Beach, California spent 16 hours floating at sea after he fell off a rented Jet Ski on August 16.
According to reports, Paul Carbullido Jr. and a friend rented a pair of PWCs on Sunday evening. About 10 minutes after they launched, Carbullido Jr. was knocked off by a wave. His friend attempted to help him by pulling him onto her Jet Ski, but when it became clear he wouldn’t be able to get on, she jumped into help him.
“She jumped off her Jet Ski,” Carbullido Jr. told reporters. “Her Jet Ski, I remember, it was just going. And then she came to where I was at, and she was like, ‘Come on!’ And I was trying to tell her, ‘I need to catch my breath. I need to catch my breath.’ Because I didn’t even know what hit me.”
Carbullido Jr. wasn’t able to help himself, so his friend began to swim back to shore. After an hour, she was able to get help by shouting at a boat. She finally alerted authorities at around 10:30 p.m., and they began their search.
“At approximately 10:30 p.m., a Good Samaritan aboard a vessel called 911 after hearing a woman yelling for help from the Long Beach Breakwater,” the Long Beach Fire Department said. “LBFD lifeguards responded, swam to the breakwater, rescued the woman, and brought her aboard an LBFD fire boat for assessment.”
Carbullido Jr., however, had drifted far from where he fell into the water, and the search took all night.
“I was telling myself, ‘What’s the best way to die? Should I just drown? Should I just bite myself? Bleed? Let something eat me?’ I was really nervous. I was really scared,” Carbullido said.
Finally, at 10:48 a.m. on the morning of August 17, a rescue helicopter spotted the victim waving at them. It had been 16 hours since Carbullido Jr. fell from his Jet Ski some three miles from where he was found, and his relief was immense.
“I probably had just a little bit of time left, you know?” he remembered. “Because I knew my time was up. I was like, ‘I can’t do this no more.’ I gave all I could give. I remember seeing it [the helicopter]. It was right above me, and I was just jumping up. ‘Help! Help! Help!’ You know? And they circled down, I saw them doing the eye contact. They threw everything down. They pulled me up, and it was just relief. And he was just looking at me, and he said, ‘People don’t survive this.'”
According to Luke Singer, an aviation survival technician with the USCG, the surprise rescuers felt on locating Carbullido Jr. after so much time had passed was warranted.
“We’re not used to finding a person in the water too consistently, so that was a big surprise when we found him in the water,” Singer said.
Carbullido Jr. is only slightly worse for wear after his ordeal, suffering from pneumonia and a belly full of saltwater. For his part, the situation has given him a new sense of purpose in his life.
“I got a purpose in life, you know?” he said. “I’m going to find out. Tomorrow I plan on going to church. I’m going to see where it takes me from there. I got a purpose in this life.”
