Boaters describe nightmare fishing trip after engine breaks, left stranded for hours in dark

MADISON COUNTY, Fla. (WCTV/Gray News) - Three men are home safe after they experienced a nightmare fishing trip as they got stranded off the coast of Florida for hours over the weekend.

Scott Snow, Dillon McRae and Adam Simpson left for a fishing trip Friday morning.

However, that night, their boat broke down due to an electrical issue, leaving them stuck on the water without any cell service or radio signal to call for help.

The men said the wind started blowing around 40 mph with 10 to 12-foot waves crashing into the boat.

They tried to head back to land, but the waves and wind were so strong they worried their boat would capsize. So, they stayed overnight.

Snow and McRae said they both got violently sick from the crashing of the waves.

“I was throwing up,” Snow said. “All night, all day.”

The men survived the overnight hours and the next morning they tried to start the boat’s engine, but it wouldn’t start.

And that’s when they began to fear the worst.

“We were starting to ration water,” Snow said.

Frantic messages to friends and family went unanswered as they were still in an area without any service.

Miraculously, one of their messages ended up going through and hours later a helicopter and Coast Guard boat could be seen approaching.

“They passed us three times and didn’t see us,” Snow said. “We used all our flares.”

Finally, after shooting off their last flare, rescuers saw them.

“They started coming towards us and all of a sudden they started circling us,” McRae said.

The nightmare was over.

“Relieved,” Snow and McRae said when asked how they felt. “Relieved, to say the least. We were going home.”

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