"They Should've Been Dead": How 3 Men Survived 28 Hours Surrounded by Sharks - Michael J. Tougias

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0:35Smooth caramel, maybe. Or white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. Your body isn't a problem to fix. It's a system to support. From PMS, to pregnancy, to menopause. Ollie's Women's Wellness Line is built on real science for every stage. No guilt. No stigmas. Just science-backed supplements that work with you, not against you. Choose science over shame. Find support at a retailer near you or on ollie.com. That's O-L-L-Y dot com. There was a point where Lou says, I'm probably not going to make it to Sonny.

1:18The men have split up, so they've broken the valve. One man has sprinted towards a boat about a mile away. So now you have the two holding back with the cooler. and this is long before the shark attack. And Lou says to Sonny, I don't think I'm going to make it, so please tie my body to the coolers to get me home. And Sonny goes, I'm not going to tie your body to the cooler. I am going to shove you in that cooler, and I'm going to bring you home no matter what. And Lou kind of rallied a little bit with Sonny's help. So it was very moving to see one man help the other and put his own future at risk by expending even more anything.

1:55Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Joining us now is Michael Togas. He's the bestselling author of In Deep Water, A True Story of Sharks, Survival and Change. And happy 4th of July weekend. Coming up, Scared Out of My Mind at Age 11 in 1975 by Jaws. And now we have this incredible book that you're bringing to us. But first, tell us a little bit about your background, Michael. You're a best-selling author. You've got a lot of fun things in your career. Yeah, a lot of my books are on this topic of survival at sea and off-the-chart rescues. I did one book called The Finest Hours that became a Disney movie and followed that up with A Storm Too Soon.

2:44So this has kind of been in my wheelhouse, if you will, but I like to diversify and every now and then go off the charts. I did a fun book called The Power of Positive Fishing, 35 Years of Friendship on the Ocean with a Buddy and What We Learned. I think we're all mystified by the sea, are we not? I think it's a fair thing to say. I mean, it's 70 plus percent of our planet, you know, 30 percent of our land is what we live on. But there's a lot of deep unknown mysteries about the sea. Is that fair to say, Michael? So aren't sharks a composite of those mysteries? Absolutely. They will do the unexpected.

3:28You know, and I've done a lot of reading about sharks. I've snorkeled with sharks. I've had shark experience. In fact, I just got off the water here on Cape Cod just an hour ago. And it was only last year that a big great white went under my boat in four feet of water. So you never know what to find. And one thing I take issue with is all the shark experts say, oh, they never attack humans intentionally. You know, they mistake you for a seal or a big fish. I'm not so sure about that. I've interviewed enough people and in deep water, it's a very unusual shark attack. I mean, we think dolphins are very smart.

4:11We think whales are very smart. Are sharks smart, Michael? I'll tell you this. I think they've learned just recently to come towards boats, knowing the boat may be trailing a struggling fish at the end of a fishing line. Because I'm noticing more and more, both at Cape Cod and when I'm in Florida, soon as the boat stops, sharks seem to appear. And, you know, it doesn't help that we have some diving going on where people feed the sharks. So I think they have learned that humans may offer a potential meal one way or another. You have a body of work, which I want to reference if you don't mind. One is The Finest Hours, which, of course, was made into a movie by Disney.

4:59You have Overboard. Of course, that's what's the exclamation point because you're exploring disaster and decision-making under fire or decision-making under extreme amounts of pressure. Why does this fascinate you? I feel like if I'm reading about first moments of human crisis, I feel like you show up. You have a way of explaining it better than most. I like that. You show up. Well, you know, because I do this for a living and I'm fascinated by it, I get pitched a lot of interesting ideas to look into. and most would be good for a magazine article but could never sustain a book. Whereas In Deep Water really got my attention, and I'd been looking for a story like this for five years, just waiting for the right story because it's 28 hours, they're treading water, and they've got to make a series of life and death decisions, and there's group dynamics involved.

6:05You have three men in the water, And so I'm attracted for two parts. One, I say to myself, I could have never made it. So that clears the first hurdle for me. And then two, does it have enough twists, turns, surprises, and those really tough decisions that they've got to get right? If you get it wrong, you can't get an A minus, in other words, you have to get an A plus with all the decisions. So for those reasons, it appeals to me like, okay, so how did they do it? Not so much physically, but mentally. How did they not give up when I'm saying to myself as I'm interviewing the folks involved, I would have thrown in the towel?

6:53Well, Michael, listen, I mean, it's a fascinating story, right? There's no mayday call. There's no time to prepare. There's no way to communicate. How common is that in a situation like this? And then, you know, what are the chances of survival in a situation like this? I felt like when I was reading this book, I was like, okay, these guys should not survive. Everything is stacked against them. So tell us a little bit about the human impulse for survival and what lights up in our brains when we're trying to figure out if these are our last breaths or not. Yes, they, you know, they never got off a mayday because things can happen fast out there.

7:38And a couple of mistakes were made early on. Like you should always tell people where you're going. and you know when the waves are building you head in at the first sign of it but i've made those mistakes too where i've gone out and forgot to tell somebody when i'm coming back or where i'm going on the ocean it but that that decision making and that resilience i think it's probably there in all of us to a greater degree than we think, but I don't think I could have done 28 hours in the ocean. And a couple of times when one of them in particular was going to give up, he would think of his family.

8:23So he had a bigger purpose than just living for himself. They also did something psychologically, which I think is important. They made a decision to stay together. Tell us about that decision and tell us why that had great consequence. So they're 10 miles out and the boat sinks. And by the way, we don't know exactly why the boat sank. It could have been a number of reasons. It was a used vessel, but this was the first trip that it could have had a small crack in the hull. The bilge pump wasn't working. They had even tied up to an oil rig. But when they go down, everything's happening fast. And one of the first decisions that they make as a group, one says, okay, this is happening.

9:13Let's not waste any breath on why this happened. In other words, who's to blame? And let's make a vow. We stick together no matter what. And the three agree. Yeah, we'll assign blame later if that's an issue for us. But for now, you know, we got to fight together and we've got one of us who's not a swimmer, Lou. We're going to make sure they grab two coolers. That's all they have for flotation besides their life jackets. And we'll position Lou in between the two coolers for better support. And with the life jackets, by the way, Lou only had a kitty life jacket on. That's all he had time to grab.

9:56So that wasn't even fitting properly. But you'll see later, it plays a role in his survival story. I mean, yeah, you have hypothermia, you have jellyfish stings, you've got desperation, exhaustion, you've got all kinds of awareness of sharks are around. So your adrenaline is pumping constantly. How do you sustain all of this? How does somebody stay at that level of cortisol and adrenaline and still survive? I would think I would have panicked out of the situation, Michael, if I'm being brutally honest. Myself as well, Anthony. They kept saying, okay, maybe we can make it to the next rig and then get swept way wide of it.

10:47and you know let's let's together do this take turns maybe kicking a little harder and that jellyfish you mentioned it wasn't just a sting here or there their legs are it's like somebody whipped their legs and at one point one of them had dozed off a little bit during the night and wakes up and there's a jellyfish bigger than a beach ball on his lap. The tentacles are going right up the shorts. Talk about a terrible way to go. Okay, I'm waking up. This is real. Thank you for tuning into Open Book. And if you haven't already, please hit the subscribe button below so that you're the first to know when our new episodes drop each week.

11:32We've got a lot more coming. And now back to the show. Yeah. I think I think you've also done a brilliant job of tying this into your corporate leadership talks, because I've watched some of these on YouTube. Yeah, thank you. When you're telling somebody about these men and decision making and you're saying, okay, here's a real life situation, here's life or death, here's how it applies to your business, or here's how it applies to your life on land. What are a few of the most resonating messages? I talk about when you're faced with some personal adversity, it won't be life and death like this case, but think of a couple tricks that these folks have used.

12:17And one is, okay, let's slow it down. We're going to take things hour by hour. I'm not going to look too far ahead because I get overwhelmed. I've had that feeling back in the corporate world where a project gets dumped on you and you're almost frozen in the headlights a little bit. But if you take it hour by hour, and that's what almost, and I've interviewed well over a hundred survivors who shouldn't be on the planet because I've been doing it for 35 years. Almost all of them say, yes, that's exactly what we did. You know, I remember one survivor in fatal forecast, he had this brilliant line.

12:54He goes, when I asked him, did you know, did you have that positive feeling you were going to make it? He goes, no, I actually thought I was not going to make it, but I was determined to go down fighting. So I took the approach. I'm going to fight for another hour and then I'll decide, do I want to fight for an additional hour? And pretty soon he's stringing hours together in fatal forecast. And almost to a survivor, they say some variation of that theme, break it down into attainable goals. Try to influence your surroundings or your situation, even in the smallest of ways so you feel productive.

13:36And it's a great lesson for all of us when we're faced with a challenge. This is a phenomenal story, which is why we wanted to bring you on. I want to talk about the Coast Guard crew on the Jayhawk helicopter. What stood out to you about their decision-making? Professionalism, that they were determined, even though the odds when they launched were only, you know, 1 % that they'd find these guys alive and find them at all, frankly. But their professionalism was, we are going to give this our best shot. And you had these two experienced pilots. To me, I'm always amazed that, I say experienced, but they're young you know, but such responsibility on their shoulders.

14:26And, you know, even with the rescue swimmer, he knows he's going in to a bunch of sharks that are surrounding these survivors, never hesitates, does what they call a direct deployment, where he doesn't even be brought down on the hook slowly, he leaps from the helicopter because he knows that these guys have been in the water 28 hours. So the professionalism is what really stands out for me and that, you know, yeah, it may only be 1%, but we're going to give it 100 % and take this until we find them. They have that mindset. Yeah. I mean, to me, I always, you know, When I think about the 9-11 firefighters or the ambulance, paramedics, everyone is running towards a crisis.

15:21And so even in there, it's the doppelganger of the victim. You know, their adrenaline is going. They're making life or death decision-making on behalf of people. And there's a lot of selflessness in all of it as well, which I think you capture. There was a fluky thing about that helicopter crew where the night before, from the very same port, three men crash into a jetty and they've got to airlift them out. One expires. And so the family members of the three guys in the booking deep water, they think, oh my God, that's our guys and one of them's dead because they'd left from the same port. It's three men in a pleasure boat.

16:02you know it all max it was just by coincidence and then this this crew who barely gets enough sleep launches again and it's three more men from the exact same port and by the way we have no idea where they are i mean you know it's incredible and i want to i want you to take everything that you've researched all these different intimate interviews and i want you to give me a paragraph or two on human resilience. There was a point where Lou says, I'm probably not going to make it to Sonny. Now, I won't give away the ending, but the men have split up. So they've broken the vow. They've broken the vow.

16:48One man has sprinted towards a boat about a mile away. So when I say sprint he's doing his best but trying to get there so now you have the two holding back with the cooler so this is long before the shark attack and lou says to sunny i don't think i'm gonna make it so please tie my body to the coolers to get me home and sunny goes i'm not gonna tie your body to the cooler i am gonna shove you in that cooler and i'm gonna bring you home no matter what and i said to Sonny, wow, I couldn't believe you could joke at a time like that. He goes, I wasn't joking. I was telling him just what I had planned to do.

17:30And then I told him, but you're not going to do that. You can go one more hour. So that hour theme kept coming up. And Lou kind of rallied a little bit with Sonny's help. So it was very moving to see one man help the other and put his own future at risk by expending even more energy. So the value of sticking together though, right? Could you imagine being alone? How easy it is to quit in a situation like that, you know? Yeah, a little pep talk. You know, if you or I were together in the ocean, each one could try and pick the other one up. Let's keep going a little bit longer. You know, one of the things about your writing that I enjoy, yes, you're a journalist, you do good investigative research, and you really do a great job interviewing people, but I think there's a human quality and I want to address you as a person.

18:20And I want you to tell me as a person, when you write this story and you're closing the book on your manuscript, what is it? What is it? How does it feel? Like, what are you thinking about? Yes, fear, encourage resilience, but I think there's something else driving you, Michael, I'm trying to get to exactly what it is. One, did I get it all right? Accuracy really counts to these survivors. And the second one is my mantra, because I've done 40 books now. My main mantra is make it fast-paced, because I read a book a week, and if I'm not hooked in the first chapter or two, I move on. So my mantra is make it fast-paced.

19:09And in deep water is fast-paced as nothing else. And, you know, when you, so then you, you've got the rough draft done, then you go back and you really, you really tighten it up. So you, you know, at my age, I'm, I'm 71 year old. I want to make sure that I'm at the top of my craft knowing, you know, maybe I'll come across one more story like this. They're so hard to find. So, so don't blow it. These guys have put their lives, so to speak, in your hands now to get the story right and be proud of this book. Get it right, but make it fast-paced. I think you did a really good job. I think you served the rescuers and the survivors really well.

19:55I think you captured—there's moments of breathlessness in this book where I'm like, whoa, now what? And I don't know. I guess to me, this has to be a joyous thing for you. This has to be a real passion project for you to be able to capture all this. What's next for you? What are you thinking about next? I know you said 71 years old, but you look 71 years young to me. So what are we doing next? You know, I'm not sure. Sure. I'm going to take a little break because these are kind of grueling projects. I've become close friends with these men. So we're going to get together at some point with the rescuers and have a little celebration of life, if you will.

20:49And I'll take a deep breath and enjoy it. And, you know, I knew that I got it right for them when they all offered on social media to post and publicize the book. And I'm like, wow, that is, you know, that's going above and beyond. You've given all your time. And so Lou, when he was in the water, he took a video of himself, a 30-second video. And I posted that on Instagram. And the thing went viral. It's got a half a million views because he doesn't say anything, but you could see it in his face that this is my message to my parents that I'm still alive, but I won't be in the next few minutes.

21:31And that authenticity, I guess, is what appeals to people online. Well, it's life or death. I mean, you know, this is the thing, you know, we both know the JFK story where his PT-109 boats cut in half as people injured as a fire in the water. He's trying to get everybody together. He swims to shore and then he carves out his coordinates in a coconut, right? And you think about it. And when I was reading your book, I was thinking about that, thinking about these other acts of heroism. I think the thing I love most about the book, I love many things. It's an adrenaline rush, but it's the quiet acts of heroism among everybody, the Coast Guard, the survivors, the people that are involved in the tragedy.

22:17So, all right. So we're down to the five words here. So I pick five words from your book, me and my producer, Holly. I'm going to say the word and then you come up with a sentence or two about the word. Okay, you ready? I'm ready to give it a go. All right. So if I say the word rescue, Michael, what comes to mind? Rescue. you? The rescuers, the SAR team, search and rescue team, not just the helicopter crew, they kept digging and digging and digging. And then they got the lucky break that, again, I won't give things away, that allowed them to take it to the next level. Okay. Fear. Check out that video that Lou took.

23:00Believe it or not, his iPhone could work underwater for 28 eight hours it's on my website you will see the fear in his face the exhaustion the fear it that really spoke to me seeing a video like that so yeah we we took a look at it before we prepared for this and it was incredibly uh authentic i think that's the reason why it went viral because it wasn't stayed it was not that's not a hollywood script right there that's real life right uh i say the word courage that they didn't you know they they didn't cast blame they never got in arguments uh they were just trying to trade ideas to keep fighting on a little bit longer and to me it was kind of this quiet courage it wasn't one person of the three taking a leadership role that probably It wouldn't have worked.

23:56It was a quiet courage to just keep going, get through the night. Then it was get through the morning. Then it was get through the afternoon. Resilience. Yeah, that, you know, again, I go to Lou, him bouncing back, because he actually did give up, but Sonny talked him out of it, you know. It'd be so easy to have the pain be over with. Other survivors have said that as well. Just take your life jacket off. It'll be over quick. You're so exhausted. you know it's just quick but it's like go a little bit longer survival if you want to read a book where you the whole time you're thinking they're not going to make it this is the survival book for you yeah you know when i think of the word survival after reading this, I think of Darwin.

24:50I think there's something in the mechanisms of our personalities and our makeup as the human animal that we're trying to get to our natural life span. And we're going to do everything we can to get there. And I think you've represented that so incredibly well in this book. So I just want to thank you for writing it. Michael Togas, thank you so much for joining us on Open Book. The title of the book is In Deep Water, A True Story of Sharks, Survival, and Courage. It is a fascinating must-read for the summer, and I appreciate you joining us. Thank you. Thank you, Anthony. It was a real pleasure.

25:29Thank you so much.

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