A Flashlight SOS Signal Brings Rescue

The U.S. Coast Guard rescued two English sailors near Hooper Island in the Chesapeake Bay Saturday morning after the couple, injured by a sudden storm that battered their boat, used a flashlight to signal SOS to a passing ship.

Members of the crew on that vessel called the Coast Guard at about 5:15 a.m., and within a half-hour, a rescue boat was in the water and on the way to the sailboat's reported location near an island off the Eastern Shore just below the Patuxent River, said Petty Officer John Robbins of the Coast Guard station in St. Inigoes.

Albert Labos, 62, and his wife, Theresa, 64, were sailing from Annapolis back to their home in England Friday night when the storm hit, Robbins said. Albert Labos injured his hand and Theresa Labos broke several ribs, Robbins said. The couple was stranded on the boat for several hours.

The storm also damaged the boat, Robbins said, though he did not know the extent of the damage. He also said he assumed that the couple's radio was out because they did not respond to Coast Guard radio inquiries and had used a flashlight to signal for help early Saturday morning.

"When the [Coast Guard] boat initially arrived on scene, they didn't have a sight on any vessel," Robbins said, adding that the weather had calmed by that time. "That was the only sailboat they saw, and they just went and investigated."

Coast Guard officers transferred the Laboses onto the rescue boat and took them to the Route 4 bridge at Solomons, where an ambulance took them to St. Mary's Hospital. Neither had life-threatening injuries, Robbins said.

Their 38-foot-6-inch sailboat was towed to Solomons.