Boater Speaks Out After Rescue At Sea Off Coast Of Cape May

By Matt Rivers

CAPE MAY, N.J., (CBS) -- The boater whose rescue at sea was caught on camera speaks out.

The Coast Guard came to his aid after he fell overboard off the coast of Cape May.

It ended with a hoist to safety in a Coast Guard helicopter.  It started with the worst moment of Damian Sexton's life.

"Went over a wave and it just threw me overboard," said Sexton.

He'd been out fishing for tuna with a friend. Now in the water with waves up to eight feet high, he saw his boat speeding away.

"I'm not just going to lay here and die. I'm going to swim as hard as I can," he said.

And so he did, chasing his boat for four hours in the cold ocean.

Damian's friend knew that he had fallen overboard, but because he wasn't familiar with the boat, he didn't know how to operate it to turn it around and pick Damian up. And because the boat was already in autopilot, it just kept going.  You can see on the GPS track from that night, this is right about where Damian fell in, this end point is where he was picked up, a distance of about 10 miles.

Against all odds, he made it back to his boat freezing and exhausted, waiting for the Coast Guard.

"I laid here on the couch with the blankets just shivering like uncontrollably," said Sexton.

A Coast Guard swimmer came aboard his boat and took him towards a rope, dropped by a chopper above.

"He put the sling around me, put the sling around him, and boom, in an instant," said Sexton.

This video shows him being hoisted safely into the helicopter and towards an emotional reunion with his wife.

"All we could do was hug and cry for at least a half hour," said wife Robin Sexton.

Officials say the odds of surviving four hours in a cold ocean are slim, for Damian there was powerful motivation.

"My two young sons, I knew that their lives would be changed forever if I was gone," he said.

A man with everything to live for.