Florida Catholic | God in the water

God in the water

A father and son survive a 15–hour ordeal lost at sea overnight.

KAREN OSBORNE | FLORIDA CATHOLIC STAFF

Published: 09.17.08

A Coast Guard diver rescues Christopher Marino, 12, from the Atlantic Ocean Sept. 7 off Ponce de Leon Inlet, Fla. Christopher and his father, 45-year-old Walter Marino, survived 12 hours in open water after they were swept out to sea by rip currents off Ponce Inlet the previous evening, much of it apart from one another.

COURTESY | U.S. COAST GUARD
A Coast Guard diver rescues Christopher Marino, 12, from the Atlantic Ocean Sept. 7 off Ponce de Leon Inlet, Fla. Christopher and his father, 45-year-old Walter Marino, survived 15 hours in open water after they were swept out to sea by rip currents off Ponce Inlet the previous evening, much of it apart from one another.

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS | Floating alone on his back 12 miles into the cold midnight ocean, framed on one side by electric lights on the coast and on the other by “the dark abyss,” Walter Marino spoke to God.

“I went back and forth from doubting to believing, anywhere from ‘God wants to help those who help themselves’ to ‘He’s pulling me away to be with Christopher,’” the parishioner of Most Precious Blood Parish in Oviedo said.

Just a few hours before, the Marino family of Winter Park was enjoying a regular summer Saturday evening Sept. 6 at the Ponce de Leon Inlet beach. But Marino’s 12–year–old son Christopher, a swimming enthusiast who has autism, swam out too far and was swallowed into the ocean by a rip tide. Marino, 45, jumped in to save him, but was swept out as well.

The people on shore could only watch as the two were sucked far from shore on the ebb tide.

They were together at first, fighting 5–foot waves that obscured the lighthouse Marino was using to triangulate their position, being swept farther and farther from shore. They saw the Coast Guard searching for them. Marino tried to use lifesaving tactics he’d learned to chaperone his daughter’s Girl Scout troop, but started vomiting when he swallowed ocean water. Christopher went from laughing to terrified by the stinging jellyfish “and he screamed,” Marino said.

The currents of the ocean became too strong, and father and son were separated.

To calm his far–off son, Marino started shouting lines from Disney films. “To infinity,” Marino shouted. “And beyond,” Christopher, who does not communicate well verbally, would reply.

Infinity, though, did not suffice. Soon, Christopher was out of earshot and Marino heard nothing but the unfamiliar night sounds of the ocean.

“I thought I lost him,” Marino whispered.

NEXT: IN GOD’S HANDS

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