John Eberle
John Eberle
cell couple mark minutes phone plane reached stayed takes
Mark stayed calm, reached in his pocket, takes out his cell phone and dialed 911. It was just beautiful. And then from there, a couple of minutes later, the plane went under.
came mark next swim
Mark said he was going to swim to it. I didn't say, 'no,' I didn't say, 'I'm with you.' I can't swim too well. At that point, I did the back float, he swam, and the next thing you know the helicopters came and got us.
events happens mark train
You train for these events routinely, but when it happens you don't know how you're going to react. Mark and me, as a team, we did well.
playing
We were playing for keeps. We didn't say that we were. We didn't say, 'What are we going to do now?' We just went for it.
knew maintained
We just went for it, we knew that we had to do it, we maintained our composure.
climbed help top
We climbed to the top of the tail. That didn't help too much. It was underwater.
recognized
The propeller sputtered and that was it ... we recognized it was an emergency.
came helicopter worst
It was great. The helicopter came over - and then I was inside. The worst was over. They were just phenomenal.