PHOTOs: Ohio-native Coast Guardsman among 3 recognized as Coast Guard's 'Shipmates of the Week'

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Seaman Jarrod Reed (center), along with Seaman Charles Gray (left) and Seaman Pablo Taborda Jr., were recognized as the Coast Guard's Shipmate of the Week on Friday.

The three men were all standing lookout watch while underway on Coast Guard Cutter Venturous when they spotted five fishermen in the water two nautical miles away, allowing the ship's crew to effect a rescue of the men.

U.S. Coast Guard photo by Lt. j.g. Jason Veara.

CLEVELAND — An East Liverpool, Ohio, native and two others were recognized as the Coast Guard's "Shipmates of the Week" on Friday for helping rescue five fishermen off the southern coast of Jamaica earlier this month.

The three men are only recent graduates of basic training at Coast Guard Training Center Cape May, N.J.

Click here to read a blog post, announcing the men as the Coast Guard's "Shipmates of the Week."

Seaman Jarrod Reed of East Liverpool, Seaman Charles Gray of Norcross, Ga., and Seaman Pablo Taborda, Jr. of Miami were standing lookout watch on Jan. 3, during a counter-narcotics patrol aboard Coast Guard Cutter Venturous, a 210-foot medium-endurance cutter homeported in Saint Petersburg, Fla.

As the ship's crew encountered 12-foot seas and 35-knot winds, the trio spotted a light in the distance at 11 p.m. and reported it to the crew standing watch on the bridge.

“The OOD (officer of the day) thought it might be a buoy, but we were confident we had spotted something more than that,” said Taborda, who graduated Coast Guard basic training on Dec. 9, 2011, and had only been on patrol with Venturous four days. “Our commitment as Coast Guardsmen and our confidence as look outs made the OOD and the command want to check it out further.”

With no correlating radar contacts in the area, the crew of Venturous went to investigate the light. The crew used their forward looking infrared camera and spotted the five fishermen clinging to the wreckage of their sunken fishing vessel. The light the fishermen used to signal the lookouts was a cell phone that surprisingly survived the capsizing of the vessel. Gray, Reed and Taborda had spotted the cell phone light from more than two miles away in 12-foot seas.

“Even though you’re the lowest man on the totem pole, you’re still capable of making that big difference in somebody’s life,” said Reed, who graduated Coast Guard basic training on Sept. 9, 2011. “We were able to make a difference that night.”

Each recruit at Training Center Cape May receives lookout training as part of their basic training, but Gray referenced another skill he learned at Training Center Cape May that is even more important.

“The most important thing I took away from training in Cape May is not to become complacent because that’s when someone can get hurt, or in this case, we could’ve very easily missed those guys,” said Gray, who graduated from the training center on Sept. 23, 2012. “They very well would be dead right now had we not seen them.”

Note: For more information, please contact Chief Warrant Officer Donnie Brzuska at 609-898-6362 or 609-224-0214 or email: donnie.c.brzuska@uscg.mil.

This image from the Coast Guard Cutter Venturous' infrared camera shows survivors waiving for help.

U.S. Coast Guard photo

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