Man who escaped boat fire with parents off Cape Cod and was stranded for 2 days says, “It haunts me to this day”
By Logan Hall
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BOSTON, Massachusetts (WBZ) — A man who escaped a boat fire with his parents and spent two nights on an island off Cape Cod said a decision he made still haunts him to this day.
“There’s days where I wake up and I don’t want to get out of bed,” Tyler Sullivan told WBZ-TV Thursday.
Sullivan is telling his story for the first time nearly one year after the fire. They were anchored near Naushon Island off the coast of Falmouth, Massachusetts spending a long weekend on their boat last October. He said one of his dogs woke him up barking in the middle of the night, alerting him to the fire.
“Flames climbing up the windows and starting to creep through the wood in the window and also the door,” Sullivan said.
He jumped out of bed and helped carry his parents into the water, heartbroken that he couldn’t save their two dogs.
“I made a split decision, what I thought was the best decision to get my parents and myself out of there,” Sullivan said. “And it haunts me to this day, and it will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
Sullivan helped his parents swim 50 yards in freezing cold water to a nearby island with a farmhouse, where they would spend two days. Hypothermia was immediately a concern, and Sullivan worked to get himself and his parents out of their wet clothes and wrapped in thin blankets he found in the house. Even then, they were freezing.
“I searched for everything and anything,” he said.
While searching for food and supplies in the house, he came across a marine walkie-talkie. It took time to find signal, but as soon as they got through to the Coast Guard’s channel, they called for help.
The Coast Guard came to rescue the Sullivans, med flighting them to a hospital in Boston.
“They did absolutely everything and anything they could do to help us,” Sullivan said. “And again, my dad being ex-Coast Guard, we can’t thank them enough.”
Tragically, it was too late for his mother, Cici Sullivan, who died of hypothermia. It’s a loss that he and his family are still processing today.
“I wish I could have a true conversation with her, and I know she doesn’t hold that against me,” Sullivan said. “I know she’s watching down from above. She’s here with me right now.”
Sullivan said the cause of the fire still has not been determined.
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