A good Samaritan reportedly saved a woman who was stranded on a burning sailboat off the Point Loma coast Friday morning, a U.S. Coast Guard official said.
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The incident was reported by Coronado lifeguards around 9:10 a.m., about 4 to 5 miles off the coast, U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson Adam Stanton said.
“It looks like the sailboat is engulfed in flame,” emergency personnel said in recorded audio posted online Friday.
The good Samaritan, whose information was not immediately available, reportedly arrived at the 30-foot vessel before the U.S. Coast Guard and saved the woman from the boat, Stanton said.
The woman at the scene told responders that she had come upon the boat the previous night, according to U.S. Coast Guard radio traffic. She said no one else was on board, it wasn’t anchored and it did not have power. It was not immediately clear how the woman initially reached the boat.
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The woman said she stayed on the boat overnight and then decided to fire a flare signal in the early morning, the audio recording said. One of the flares bounced back, landed on the boat and started the fire.
Video captured by San Diego Web Cam showed smoke rising in the air along a foggy horizon.
The boat was badly charred but remained floating, Stanton said. It was towed into a nearby jetty to keep it from interfering with other boats’ navigation.
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No other details about the incident were immediately available.
