Spillin' the Tea: The heroic rescue of 2018: How an outdoorsman and a brave dog saved lives on the Okatie River

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Jason Dubose is an outdoorsman, through and through, a man who would much rather spend his time on the water or in the woods than live his life cooped up inside. Jason has spent the last 20 years in Bluffton, and specifically, Oldfield Club as a charter captain and the hunt program director. As with many folks who spend their life on the water, he has his fair share of great stories, and this one takes the cake.

It was a chilly March morning in 2018 when Jason was perched in the office at work, as a fishing charter had cancelled. The phone began to ring and on the other line was a woman who said she was on the nature trail in Oldfield and thought she faintly heard cries for help, but she couldn’t be sure. Jason assured the lady that he would be right over to see if he could hear anything as he jumped in his truck.

“I met up with the lady on the nature trail that runs along the Okatie River, and she went over again what she thought that she had heard. The wind was blowing at 25 miles per hour gusts, and it made it quite hard to hear anything, let alone cries from the riverbank, which she could have sworn she heard. Close by there was a new house going up, and perhaps she had just heard the construction workers yelling at one another.”

“I stayed with her for about 10 minutes or so, just trying to listen to see if this was perhaps a false alarm. As I started to walk back to the truck, oddly, the wind just stopped for a moment. In that time, I heard it, plain as day, that someone was yelling ‘help!’”

Jason quickly went with the Director of Security, and they jumped in the club boat to go investigate the windy river. As they are driving along, they spot something red about 300 yards away right on the edge of Jack Ass Island, a small piece of land off Pinckney Point.

“I could only see the red silhouette in the marsh, but I had traveled that area enough times in the past week, I knew it hadn’t been there. As we began to pull closer, we could see a man up to his waist in pluff mud, waving his hands frantically, calling for help.”

As Jason and security pulled up to the man, it became soon apparent that he was suffering from hypothermia and was not coherent at all. They knew they had to get him out of the mud and get him dry and warm, quickly! But, if you have ever been stuck in pluff mud, it’s not only hard to get out, it’s downright scary to feel that trapped.

“We end up grabbing him under the arms, and put the motor in reverse to pull him free. The whole time he is fighting us and still speaking incoherently. We get him onto the boat and strip him down immediately. We wrapped him in whatever we could find and started back to the Oldfield dock. I made a call to the naturalist on site and told her to get the truck started and blast the heat.”

“When we got him in the truck and began to warm up him up, he told us that there were still two more out in the frigid water, as their boat had flipped. I immediately knew we were now on a rescue mission. I really thought we were going to be looking for bodies by this time. I call 911 and the Beaufort Marine Resue Squadron, and we got back onto the boat and shoved off again.”

“When we got to the area of Camp St. Mary’s, we could see a man off in the distance standing on a dock with a dog next to him, waving his hands at us. We quickly rode over there and found the man wet and cold but wrapped in a towel. He explained that he was one of the men on the capsized boat. They had been working on a dock and decided on their lunch break they were going to cruise around for a bit in their little 15-foot Jon boat. Somehow, one of the men who was in the front of the small boat tried to climb to the back, and in the windy and unstable conditions, the boat flipped. He explained to me that there was one more man still in the water that needed to be found.”

Jason radioed again to 911 and told the rescue squad that they had found man number two, but there was still one more to be found in the water.

“I began asking the gentleman we found on the dock how he managed to get where we found him, and he told me a story I’ll never forget.”

“When we flipped, chaos ensued. The water was freezing, and I knew that I was not a very good swimmer. I saw a dock in the distance, and I thought my best bet was to try to make it there, if I could. I got about 30 or 40 yards, and I started to feel my body give out.  I’d go under for a short period of time but then pop back up. Every time I popped up, I saw that dock and a dog frantically barking at me. That happened a few times, where I would go under, then pop back up again. I knew I didn’t have much time left.”

“Next thing I knew, I popped back up one final time and the dog that was on the dock, was now coming right for me. I reached out, and I managed to grab his tail and hold on for a moment before my hands cramped up and my hand slipped off. Once my hand slipped, I saw the dog keep swimming for the dock. I knew that was it for me.”

“Alas, the dog circled around one final time, and this time, I reached for his collar and felt the cold fabric on my hands. I held on for dear life, and this time, I didn’t let go!”

“That dog not only pulled me to safety but also pulled me to a dock that had collapsed during Hurricane Irma, and half the decking was in the water so I could climb and pull myself to safety.”

As Jason listened to this amazing story, the whole time he had thought to himself that the dog was this man’s dog. Turns out, this man had never seen this dog before in his life, and it was simply the yellow lab of a caretaker of house just down river!

The third man had safely been found walking down Pinckney Colony Road, wet and afraid, but nothing that some blankets and a warm truck couldn’t fix.

As Jason tells me this story, I can still sense the amazement in his voice from that day, a day those three men will never forget. All memories thanks to some quick-thinking outdoorsmen, and a yellow lab named Woody!

Paul Tollefson is the Director of Tennis at the Hampton Hall Club in Bluffton. He found his love for the Lowcountry in early 2002 after graduating high school and unsure of what career path he was destined towards. After moving from Hilton Head to Bluffton he became enthralled with the history of the town and the people and cultures that called it home for many generations. He has found a passion in writing and enjoys being able to share the stories and pictures of long-time locals. He is the co-creator of the Facebook page “Bluffton Then and Now”.