Father and son receive awards from the North Carolina Coast Guard after saving a life

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) —A father-son duo who rescued a man off the Cape Fear coast, rewarded today by the Coast Guard for saving a life.

The North Carolina Coast Guard honored father and son Andrew and Jack Sherman with an award for rescuing Sascha Scheller July 5.

Sascha Scheller was offshore fishing when he fell overboard. Andrew Sherman and Jack Sherman discovered his unmanned boat, and jumped into action, finding and rescuing Scheller.

Audio from their radio call to the North Carolina Coast Guard details moments they discovered Scheller’s  unmanned vessel.

Sherman: “Coast Guard Station Wrightsville Beach, Coast Guard Station Wrightsville Beach come in.”

USCG: “Vessel hailing, this is Coast Guard go ahead.”

Sherman: “Coast Guard Wrightsville Beach, we just found a boat …there is no one aboard.”

The Sherman’s communicated the entire time with the Coast Guard, with hopes to find the missing boater, finding his ID with his name on boat.

USCG: “Roger captain, Sascha Scheller. Request you say again, was the boat moving when you came upon it?”

Sherman: “Boast was moving, it almost ran us down. So we moved out of the way, followed the boat, hit it with four or five blasts on a air horn. Waited about 10 minutes…my son found no one on board.”

The sound of relief heard in Sherman’s Voice was evident when Scheller was found in the water after keeping afloat for more than an hour.

Sherman: “Coast guard this is Parker, I have found him! Coast guard this is Parker I have found him!”

Andrew was awarded the Meritorious Public Service award, and Jack got a Coast Guard Commendation Medal.

“We just were out there off shore, kind of seeing what we could do to help out. This is not what I would have guessed in a million years,” said Jack Sherman.

“It’s a wonderful feeling of security in knowing the Coast Guard is out there. We were 37 miles off shore, I radioed from my 21 foot boat, and they instantaneously picked up.  Never knew if it would even carry in that far,” said Andrew Sherman.

Scheller said he is thankful to the Sherman’s for rescuing him.

“It’s kind of hard to kind of sum it up in words. You can’t  –there’s no way to sum it up. You know, I’m indebted for life. You know, they gave me everything back that I thought I had lost,” said Sascha Scheller, boater.

NC Coast Guard Commander, Captain Matt Baer says he is thankful for the two’s effort on the successful rescue.

“Ultimately to not have them not depart the scene, you know,– when coast guard resources were about 90 minutes away, they were able to stay on the scene and actually find the person. So, this is one of the most – I got the biggest pit in my stomach when I got the call on this one, and it was also the most joyful call I got, about an hour later they said ‘we found him, we found him,” said Capt. Matt Baer.

After the ceremony today, the Sherman’s, Scheller, and their friends and family got a look at how the coast guard manages radio communications.