Man swims 5 hours to shore as family holds onto capsized boat
| Deal Island, Md.
A man swam 5 hours, resting once on a crab pot buoy, toward shore to help his family after their boat capsized two miles off the shore of Maryland.聽
Once he reached land, John Franklin Riggs聽climbed rocks along the shoreline in the dark and knocked on the door of the first house he saw early Wednesday.聽
Angela Byrd, who lives at that house, may have slept through Riggs' knocks had it not been for her dog, the .聽"He came to the right house," Ms. Byrd told the paper.聽鈥淗e said, 鈥業鈥檝e been swimming since sundown; I need help.'"
She called 911 and rescuers were soon on their way to the 16-foot Carolina Skiff.
Sgt. Brian Albert of the Maryland Natural Resources Police says life jackets saved the boaters after the boat capsized near Deal Island southwest of Salisbury, on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
Contessa Riggs tells the Daily Times that she clung to the boat with her 3-year-old son, 70-year-old聽father, and his 9-year-old granddaughter for five hours; they were stung by sea nettles; and she was never so happy to see search boats.
"鈥淚t took him five hours to swim ashore. He had to stop and grab a crab pot buoy and rest, then swim," she told the Daily Times.聽
