The following article is about my husband and my brother in law. My brother in law went missing that night and has never been seen or heard of again, it is presumed he is dead but no body was ever found so we have no way of knowing with certainty. All we do know is that a family has been left heartbroken and Steven is missed by many.
Ocean rescuer had to leave one man behind
By David Connolly, Enterprise staff writer
A Scituate man saved one of two Bridgewater brothers Monday night in the icy ocean waters off the mouth of the North River in Scituate, but the second man was presumed dead Tuesday morning when the Coast Guard suspended its search for him.
Authorities believe Steven Hockey, 18, drowned after a small boat he and his brother took for a ride capsized and he was pulled under the water by a fierce current where the river meets the ocean at the New Inlet.
Hockey helped save his brother, James R. Burke, 20, by shoving him onto a kayak that John P. Kasper III of Scituate paddled out from the so-called "Spit," a sand bar at the bottom of Third Cliff.
"Don't let go of him," Hockey said to Kasper as he pushed his brother out of the water onto the six-foot kayak. Hockey was then whisked away by the undertow, Kasper said.
Monday evening Kasper, a 43-year-old contractor and former park ranger in New Hampshire, was watching the sunset with a friend at the Spit. He said he had heard parts of conversation between Hockey and Burke well before hearing people scream for help.
After they realized the men were in trouble, his friend ran for a nearby kayak. Kasper kicked off his shoes and climbed into the one-person boat and paddled through the darkness toward the screams.
"There were no other boats out there," he said.
When Kasper reached Hockey and Burke, they were huddled together less than a half mile from shore.
After he pushed Burke onto the kayak, Hockey "sunk like a rock as soon as he pushed Jimmy to me," said Kasper. "The current just took him."
Kasper said there was no way he could have gone in after Hockey without Burke, who appeared unconscious, falling back into the water.
He recalled a "gurgling" sound and seeing and hearing bubbles seconds after Hockey went under.
"I didn't have a life preserver, or anything to tie (Burke) to the kayak. I didn't have anything," he said. All Kasper had was a short, half paddle.
As he waited "for what seemed like hours," he held onto Burke with one hand and the paddle with the other. Kasper said he cleared Burke's throat and mouth several times of ocean water and vomit.
After 12 to 15 minutes, a rescue crew of Scituate firefighters on a Kodiak raft made their way to Kasper and Burke and brought them to shore. Burke was flown by helicopter from the sandbar to Boston Medical Center, where he was treated for hypothermia and released Tuesday afternoon.
Massachusetts Environmental Police, who investigate recreational boating accidents, found six empty beer cans in the small boat, and the Coast Guard recovered "a bunch of beer cans" in the water near the accident scene, said DEM Lt. Kevin O'Brien.
Officials reported the water temperature as about 45 degrees and called the spot where the boat capsized "a rough bit of water."
Even though the water appears calm, the flow of the North River and the ocean's tides combine to make the New Inlet an "unforgiving spot," said Sue Morgan, a Scituate resident of more than 30 years.
It looks so calm and so beautiful," she said from Driftway Road on Third Cliff overlooking New Inlet and The Spit. "When the tide turns, there's a terrible undercurrent."
Monday night's accident happened as the tide was going out, almost three hours after the 5:46 p.m. high tide.
Morgan said boating accidents happen regularly all summer in the same spot. "You really have to know the waters around here," she said.
Scituate Fire Chief Edward Hurley said the rough waters of the New Inlet have claimed at least a dozen lives in the past 10 years. Firefighters rescued two boaters Saturday morning, he said.
The Coast Guard called off the search for Hockey Monday morning at 10:15, after three boats and two helicopters searched a 5-by-10-mile stretch of water. Boats searched throughout the night. Helicopters did not search from about 1 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Officials expect Hockey's body to wash up on the beach within the next few days.
Scituate Harbormaster Elmer E. Pooler continued to search for Hockey Tuesday.
An old mariner's rule of thumb says when the water is 50 degrees, people have about a 50 percent chance of survival during the first 50 minutes, said DEM Lt. Larry Chenier.
The water temperature was about 45 degrees. The Coast Guard estimated maximum survival time in 45-degree water at 2 hours, 45 minutes, said Chenier.
The Monday night incident was the first recreational boating accident of the season, something Chenier hopes may give pause to inexperienced mariners.
"These deaths are almost always caused by human error," he said.
Sixty-seven recreational boating accidents on Massachusetts waterways last season caused five deaths, and more than half of the total accidents were caused by carelessness or excessive speed, according to the Environmental Police.
