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- Mar 13, 2004
Details are real sketchy....I just came across this on Yahoo...
Around 5:30 p.m., the report said the group ran into trouble: Their anchor was stuck. Schuyler told investigators that he believed it was caught in a coral reef. They tried to free it, but water filled the boat and it capsized.
Tossed into the frigid water, the men managed to grab their life vests. Schuyler said they held on to the boat for four hours. But as the night wore on, their will to survive appears to have weakened and the effects of hypothermia were likely setting in.
Schuyler told the Coast Guard that one of the men "freaked out" and took off his life vest and disappeared that night.
Another one of the men started getting unruly and throwing punches later. Schuyler told the Coast Guard the second man also took off his life jacket, dove under the water and was never seen again. The third man thought he saw land nearly two days after the boat capsized and decided to swim for it.
Schuyler told the Coast Guard that man said his life jacket was too tight and he took it off.
Officials have said that they eventually found three life jackets; one on Schuyler; another near the boat and a third underneath it. The bodies of the three who disappeared have not been found.
It's unclear how accurate the account is. Schuyler, who was found clinging to the overturned boat about 35 miles off Clearwater and nearly 48 hours after the accident, was suffering from hypothermia and he has provided different accounts to the men's relatives. The family of William Bleakley, for example, said Schuyler told them that their son held on to the boat with his college teammate until he weakened and died. Schuyler has also said that Bleakley helped him survive, talking to him and encouraging him during their last night together.
Marquis Cooper's father has questioned Schuyler's account that his son removed his life jacket. Schuyler has not responded to interview requests.
Link
I dunno...I want to give Schuyler the benefit of the doubt, but the fact that he has given different stories to the various families of those lost at seaonly makes me wonder. Seems like it might have been a survival of the fittest type of situation after the boat flipped. If anyone deserves an HONEST account,it's the other families. I just don't know why his stories weren't consistent. Even Cooper's pops isn't believing why Schuyler issaying....sad situation, and RIP to those still out there...