Hero Sailor Died Saving Five Others

June 9, 2008 — -- Roger Stone knew there was less than a minute to escape when the racing yacht began to capsize, but with the ocean pouring into the below-deck cabin, Stone pushed two others through the onrushing water to safety.

Stone, a 53-year-old experienced sailor and the boat's safety officer, didn't make it out — and the boat's five survivors today called him a "true hero" who gave his life to save them. His body was pulled from the overturned vessel Sunday.

"Roger was down below and he helped both Steve Guy, who was down below, and Travis Wright, who was down below, out by pushing them up through the rushing stream of water," commander Steven Conway told "Good Morning America" today.

"Roger was a friend, a great sailor, a great coach, a true hero and our prayers and our thoughts are with his family this time of their loss."

The six-person crew, which is a member of the Texas A&M sailing team, had less than a minute to escape once the vessel began taking on water during a regatta in the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend.

"It was somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds from the first report from Roger Stone that there was flooding down below until we were all the way turned over," Conway said.

R. Bowen Loftin, CEO of Texas A&M at Galveston, expressed condolences to Stone's family — including his wife and two children — in a message posted on the school's Web site.

"We hope they can take some comfort in knowing all five survivors of this tragic accident credit Mr. Stone with heroic efforts that were instrumental in making possible their survival," Loftin said on the school's Web site. "We now know that Roger Stone died a hero in the classic sense of the word."

The crew, which also included students Joe Savana and Ross James Buzbee, floated in the open water for 26 hours before a Coast Guard helicopter finally spotted them early Sunday morning and plucked them from the water at 2 a.m. The men suffered from dehydration and sunburn.

A helicopter crew from Air Station Houston pulled the five men from the water 23 miles south of Freeport, Coast Guard Petty Officer Renee C. Aiello said Sunday. They had drifted about five miles northwest of their capsized boat.

As the group escaped the sinking vessel and waited for rescuers, Conway said no one saw Stone escape the doomed ship.

The five who survived the initial crisis faced a new problem — they only had four life vests.

In the frantic effort to escape the flooding cabin, Guy emerged without his life jacket. So Conway used his belt to latch onto him.