Exclusive: Married divers stranded for nearly 40 hours detail harrowing rescue
The U.S. Coast Guard searched an area of 1,600 square miles for the couple.
An experienced husband and wife diver duo who were stranded at sea off the coast of Texas for nearly 40 hours spoke exclusively to "Good Morning America" on Monday about their rescue by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Nathan and Kim Maker from Oklahoma were on a diving trip in the Gulf of Mexico last Wednesday when a member of their group lost her grip on a downline, the rope divers hold onto to get to the calmer waters below.
"The current starts taking her away," Kim Maker recalled of how the ordeal began before her husband raced to save the woman.
"I was swimming with everything I had to get her back to the line," Nathan Maker said. "And we got her to the line, and I just was within arm's reach."
The woman made it back aboard safely, but amid the chaos, Kim Maker was knocked from the line herself, and she and her husband were swept away by the current.
"The boat was getting smaller and smaller and smaller until it was completely out of sight," Nathan Maker recounted.
Alone and fighting to stay alive, Nathan Maker said the couple "took inventory of what we had on us and we tethered ourselves together."
The couple told "GMA" they initially tried to swim to an oil rig in the distance.
The boat reportedly searched for the couple, but couldn't find them and alerted the Coast Guard to their disappearance to launch a search.
"Because our body temperatures were dropping, we needed to keep swimming, or we probably [would have] frozen to death," Kim Maker said.
Referring to her husband, she added, "He absolutely is the reason that we're alive, just keeping our spirits up, because it would have been really easy to give up."
Eventually, after more than a day adrift, the couple said they saw and heard rescue planes in the distance.
"When that plane it turned its nose towards us, Kim hits SOS on her [flashlight], and they saw us," Nathan Maker said, noting his wife had learned Morse code from her father.
Holding back tears, Kim Maker recounted, "Just out of the corner of our eyes this speedboat comes just streaming in, and all of a sudden I can hear the voices of Coast Guard guys."
Nathan Maker added, "I really believe we saw the hand of God that day. And it was the hand of the Coast Guard."
The Coast Guard team that rescued the couple gave the Makers clothes and sweatshirts out of their own lockers upon their rescue.
The couple said they plan to dive again, but may choose an area where they can keep their eye on land.
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