Speaker 1: It's eight thirty nine, almost e thirty nine. Here fifty
Speaker 1: five KRCY Talk Station. A very happy Monday to you.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: I have been intrigued by this since I saw him
Speaker 1: on the rundown. I'm happy to welcome to the fifty
Speaker 1: five Carscsey Morning Show. Since any native an Air Force veteran,
Speaker 1: he did service in Iraq, he is well also kind
Speaker 1: of crazy. I will tell you that Tom Hester welcome
Speaker 1: to the program. By way background, He's currently the vice
Speaker 1: president and co founder of Heroic Expeditions. It's a nonprofit
Speaker 1: organization whose mission is to empower veterans to reclaim their
Speaker 1: sense of self and help them find healing and unearth
Speaker 1: the boundless possibilities that await them after the years of
Speaker 1: military service. Programs offered by Heroic Expeditions dot org include
Speaker 1: mental health counseling referrals, group recreational activities, and a mental
Speaker 1: health first aid course. Let me start off by thanking
Speaker 1: you for your service to our country. Tim, It's a
Speaker 1: pleasure to have you on this morning.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for having me something I've been
Speaker 3: looking forward to for a while now.
Speaker 1: And I said, kind of crazy. You're gonna be at
Speaker 1: the lunch with a veteran event on Sunday, May twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: and this takes place at Arlington Memorial Gardens. Have I
Speaker 1: got that correct?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: And Arlington Memorial Gardens has obtained exclusive rights to something
Speaker 1: I'm sure near and dear to your heart. It's a
Speaker 1: PBS documentary called Defying Death on the Atlantic and you
Speaker 1: were a crew member on the team that's featured in
Speaker 1: this PBS documentary. Is that correct?
Speaker 3: That is correct, and probably why you and many others
Speaker 3: call me crazy.
Speaker 1: That's it, okay? How many of us would sign up
Speaker 1: for what is described as a perilous three thousand mile
Speaker 1: ocean rowing race called the World's Toughest row. I mean
Speaker 1: that that's bad assery or craziness right there? My friend
Speaker 1: tell us all about what this race involves before we
Speaker 1: get to the details of what happened to you on
Speaker 1: that team in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you're absolutely right. Not many people would
Speaker 3: sign up for that amount of craziness. A three thousand
Speaker 3: mile row, no sales, no engines, just you and your team.
Speaker 2: And if you ain't rowing, you ain't.
Speaker 3: Going three thousand miles from Lagamera and the Canary Islands
Speaker 3: to Antigua in the Caribbean. That was the goal to
Speaker 3: help motivate fellow veterans to.
Speaker 2: Get out of their little bubble, out of their own world,
Speaker 2: go do.
Speaker 3: Something cool like you got to do while you were
Speaker 3: in the military, overcome your challenges.
Speaker 2: We set out to help guys get over trauma, and
Speaker 2: we came home with just a little bit more of
Speaker 2: our own.
Speaker 1: Yes, you did. How many men are on the team?
Speaker 2: You've never cooperated the way we needed it too.
Speaker 1: Well, it's the ocean. You don't have no idea what
Speaker 1: you're going to run into out there in the ocean.
Speaker 1: How many men are on your team? We're on your team.
Speaker 4: We were all deployed together in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 4: so by the time the race started in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: we had known each other and become lifelong friends, ready
Speaker 4: to go do some badassery together.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And there were a total of how many of you?
Speaker 2: There were four of us four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there were always two guys rowing and there
Speaker 3: were always two guys resting, rotated in two hour shifts
Speaker 3: twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1: So how long, okay, how long did you anticipate this
Speaker 1: three thousand mile Because I know you didn't make it
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, and we're going to get to
Speaker 1: that in a moment. And I'm keeping my powder dry on
Speaker 1: what happened to you, But the expectation of the time
Speaker 1: it would take to complete when you when you started out, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's going to take us about how many days to
Speaker 1: complete this?
Speaker 5: We were shooting for under fifty fifty days, yes, unsupported.
Speaker 5: So we had all of our own food packed in
Speaker 5: the boat. We had solar panels, so we had energy
Speaker 5: on the boat, and we also had a desalinator on
Speaker 5: board so we could drink fresh water made right from
Speaker 5: the ocean.
Speaker 1: Now, in terms of the size of the craft, how
Speaker 1: many feet was it and was did it come with
Speaker 1: some form of shelter because you get inclement weather, as
Speaker 1: we're going to find out. But so what does a
Speaker 1: general description of the of the boat look like.
Speaker 3: The boat was twenty eight feet long by five feet wide.
Speaker 3: The rowing portion the deck of the boat was completely open.
Speaker 2: There was no overhead shelter or anything.
Speaker 3: But each end of the boat had a cabin in
Speaker 3: it and that's where you would spend your off shift,
Speaker 3: so you were enclosed on either end.
Speaker 2: Of the boat.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, the name of your team, which I got
Speaker 1: a big chuckle out of, and I know it was
Speaker 1: done done tongue in cheek. But let my listeners know.
Speaker 3: The team and organization that we rowed for was called
Speaker 3: Fight or Die or isa.
Speaker 1: AR right, all right, So that makes perfect sense considering
Speaker 1: you're going on a three thousand mile ocean rowing race.
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty two when you embarked on this
Speaker 1: at the outset huge challenge, let my listeners know what
Speaker 1: happened what's depicted in the Defying Death on the Atlantic documentary.
Speaker 3: Sure, So, like you had said, the race started in December,
Speaker 3: I don't The reason it starts at that time frame
Speaker 3: is because the trade winds off of Africa should have
Speaker 3: formed by then. Well, what had happened to us? Right
Speaker 3: around Christmas Day? There was a giant storm that passed
Speaker 3: over Buffalo, New York. I think it dropped like eight
Speaker 3: feet of snow on them, and then the jet stream
Speaker 3: pushed out to the North Atlantic. Well, that storm generated
Speaker 3: thirty forty foot swells, sustained thirty nine winds, and on
Speaker 3: the morning of the twenty eighth, our boat that was
Speaker 3: supposed to self right in the event of a capsize.
Speaker 3: Our boat capsize on top of a wave. We got
Speaker 3: hit by a giant got the wind flipped our boat
Speaker 3: over in the middle of the night and never self
Speaker 3: righted the way it was supposed to, so effectively ending
Speaker 3: our race at that moment.
Speaker 1: And so this is the middle of the night and
Speaker 1: you're out in the middle of the ocean. Obviously there's
Speaker 1: no light going on around there. Can I ask you,
Speaker 1: because I know exactly if I would, that would be
Speaker 1: a I have to change my shorts inducing moment in time.
Speaker 1: What were your emotions like at the time that that happened.
Speaker 1: And I know you were out at sea for a
Speaker 1: while there after. We get to that in a minute,
Speaker 1: But what were your emotions like at the very moment
Speaker 1: that that happened.
Speaker 3: I was in the cabin and I'm very grateful that
Speaker 3: I was inside when it happened.
Speaker 2: I was kind of in between sleep and total fear
Speaker 2: at that moment. Yeah, we knew we were in probably.
Speaker 3: Not the best of situations, so we were all kind
Speaker 3: of on edge the whole day.
Speaker 2: The moment the.
Speaker 3: Boat flipped over, there was probably a split second of
Speaker 3: oh my god, we're upside down. This is not good,
Speaker 3: but right after that training kind of kicked in. This
Speaker 3: is a race and a moment we had been preparing
Speaker 3: for for a couple of years that point.
Speaker 2: So I was in a position where I knew.
Speaker 3: The boat was supposed to flip back over, but it
Speaker 3: was totally dark and all I could see was the
Speaker 3: water line in the window of the hatch.
Speaker 2: And it didn't move.
Speaker 1: Oh my, Now you swam out then from the hatch,
Speaker 1: I presume.
Speaker 3: So kind of like a car accident. Time slowed down
Speaker 3: a lot while I was in the cabin. I had
Speaker 3: to grab all of our gear that we were going
Speaker 3: to need. I had heard one of my teammates will, yeah,
Speaker 3: we need to get to the life raft. The boat's
Speaker 3: not flipping over. So at that moment it was time
Speaker 3: to go to work. I knew I needed to grab
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff for us. Turned out I had
Speaker 3: been in that cabin for about forty to forty five
Speaker 3: minutes before I left the cabin to get to the
Speaker 3: life raft. Wow, And I had no idea it was
Speaker 3: that long. It felt like maybe five to ten.
Speaker 1: Oh my, and it was all of you. Your crewmates
Speaker 1: were safe in the quote unquote safe sense under the circumstances,
Speaker 1: maybe not so safe considering the storm raging around you,
Speaker 1: in the fact that your boat was flipped over but
Speaker 1: you had the life raft. Did any point in time
Speaker 1: any of the crewmates like lose track of the boat
Speaker 1: or the craft get washed out that they were concerned
Speaker 1: that they might not be rescued or get back to
Speaker 1: the life raft.
Speaker 3: So two of us were in the cabins and two
Speaker 3: of the teammates were actually on deck still in the
Speaker 3: rowing position. So when you are not in a cabin,
Speaker 3: you are required to be harnessed and tethered. So when
Speaker 3: the boat did flip over, two of the teammates were
Speaker 3: actually ejected opposite directions.
Speaker 2: The other two of us were still in.
Speaker 3: The cabin right, So them being tethered to the boat
Speaker 3: was paramount to everybody making at home.
Speaker 1: Well, that's reassuring to know. I was kind of wondering
Speaker 1: how that worked out. So thank god for safety equipment
Speaker 1: and portable radio. Did you have an opportunity to communicate
Speaker 1: you weren't flying blind out there in the middle of
Speaker 1: the ocean before the vote boat cap size. Did you
Speaker 1: have a portable radio or something that went with the
Speaker 1: lifeboat or the lifeboat have one built in.
Speaker 3: So We had a satellite phone that we actually had
Speaker 3: to use and keep on every day. We were part
Speaker 3: of a race hosted by Atlantic Campaigns, and they have
Speaker 3: very strict safety requirements, and one of those is you
Speaker 3: talked on a satellite phone with their.
Speaker 2: Safety officer at least every other day.
Speaker 3: And we had just spoken with him on the satellite
Speaker 3: phone the day before, so you know, we had the
Speaker 3: satellite phone on a charger. When I was drabbing gear
Speaker 3: to go to the life raft, that was one of
Speaker 3: the things I grabbed. I would grab the satellite phone,
Speaker 3: a VHF radio, and a handheld GPS.
Speaker 2: That's about all we had. Now by the time we
Speaker 2: got to the life raft, though, the satellite phone had
Speaker 2: gotten wet and it didn't work.
Speaker 3: Oh no, So our only community devices were two cell
Speaker 3: phones that weren't going to work in the middle of
Speaker 3: the Atlantic, and a VHF radio that works by line
Speaker 3: of sight. So that's actually not very far when you're
Speaker 3: still in thirty foot waves.
Speaker 1: Jeez. So how many days were you on the or
Speaker 1: how long we were on the how long I should
Speaker 1: say we were on the life raft before you were rescued,
Speaker 1: and how did you get rescued?
Speaker 3: Well, we had been in the life raft for approximately
Speaker 3: sixteen hours before ever making contact with anybody.
Speaker 2: On about our.
Speaker 3: Sixteen and a half, we made another May Day call
Speaker 3: on that VHF radio and we received a reply via
Speaker 3: two Mike clicks from who we had no idea who
Speaker 3: could hear us, but at that point we didn't care.
Speaker 3: About an hour later we were able to communicate with somebody.
Speaker 3: Still didn't know who it was, and then an hour
Speaker 3: later we were picked up by a six hundred foot
Speaker 3: cargo ship out of the Netherlands.
Speaker 2: Wow, from a deflating life raft.
Speaker 1: Oh my, And I'm sure all of this is in
Speaker 1: the PBS documentary to Fine Death on the Atlantic. Again.
Speaker 1: It's Arlington Memorial Gardens has got the exclusive rights to
Speaker 1: premiere this. You will be at the premiere if you
Speaker 1: show up at Arlington Memorial Gardens May twenty fourth, that's Saturday,
Speaker 1: one pm is the first showing. You got a four
Speaker 1: pm showing on the twenty fourth, and then on Sunday,
Speaker 1: May twenty fifth is a two pm showing. And that's
Speaker 1: the day when you'll be speaking at the annual luncheon
Speaker 1: with a veteran. That's the twenty fifth of May right. Yes,
Speaker 1: I am very excited to that, I guess, and you
Speaker 1: know I thank god you're alive and able to talk
Speaker 1: about this. Just amazing story, just proving again why I
Speaker 1: would never volunteer to do something as crazy as this Sunday.
Speaker 2: Maybe people would not.
Speaker 3: I believe more people have been to space than have
Speaker 3: rowed a boat across an.
Speaker 1: Ocean, and that sounds about right to be. Heroic Expeditions
Speaker 1: Dot Org for my veteran friends in the in the
Speaker 1: audience doing great things, Veterans united in resilience, bonded forged
Speaker 1: in adventure like the one we just talk about. It's
Speaker 1: been a real pleasure having on the program. And thanks
Speaker 1: again for your service to our country and your continued
Speaker 1: service to our country with your organization, Heroic Expeditions.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. The pleasure has been all mine.
Speaker 1: Crazy man, Yeah, I got respect, There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: Eight fifty one fifty five KERR c DE Talk station
Speaker 1: fifty five KRC. What if you had an extra dollar