June 4, 2024 — The call from the Atlantic Ocean sounded over VHF radio on a midsummer afternoon. » “Mayday, mayday, mayday,” the transmission began, then addressed the nearest U.S. Coast Guard command center. “Sector Delaware Bay, this is the vessel Jersey Pride. Come in.”
About 40 miles east-southeast of Barnegat Light, N.J., the Jersey Pride, a 116-foot fishing vessel with a distinctive royal blue hull, was towing a harvesting dredge through clam beds 20 fathoms down when its crew found a deckhand unresponsive in a bunk. The captain suspected an overdose. After trying to revive the man, he rushed to the radio. • “Yes, Coast Guard, uh, I just tried to wake a guy up and he’s got black blood in his nose, he said, sounding short of breath on Channel 16, the international hailing and distress frequency for vessels at sea. “I got guys working on him. Come in.”
The seas were gentle, the air hot. In cramped crew quarters in the forepeak, the deckhand, Brian Murphy, was warm but not breathing in a black tee and jeans. He had no discernible pulse.
Dark fluid stained his nostrils. A marine welder and father of four, Murphy, 40, had been mostly unemployed for months, spending time caring for his children while his wife worked nights. A few days earlier, while he was on a brief welding gig to repair the Jersey Pride at its dock, the captain groused about being short-handed. Murphy agreed to fill in. Now it was July 20, 2021, the third day of the first commercial fishing trip of his life. Another somber sequence in the opioid epidemic was nearing its end.
Read the full article at the New York Times