Sky Decker was on a boat ride near his Galveston home Monday afternoon, alongside his 11-year-old son and a neighbor, when he heard word of a plane crash in the bay. Instead of turning around, the crew of three drove the boat toward the crash, looking to help.
“We thought, ‘Well, we’re already in a boat,'” Decker told Houston Public Media on Monday evening.
Decker, who according to his wife had been involved in a plane crash when he was younger, said police officers waved them down along the way and got on their boat, helping to navigate them to the crash site through thick fog that sat over Galveston Island.
The scene they encountered involved eight people who were aboard a plane when it crashed at around 3:17 p.m. Monday just west of the Galveston Causeway, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard. A small Mexican Navy plane was on a medical support mission with the Michou y Mau Foundation, which helps pediatric burn patients, when it experienced an issue in its approach to Galveston.
At least five of the people on board, including a patient, were killed in the crash, according to the Consulate General of Mexico in Houston. Citing a Monday evening report from the Mexican Navy, a spokesperson for the consulate said a Navy officer had not been located and was presumed to be dead, while two civilian passengers survived the crash.
Decker said he was able to help get a woman out of the plane alive.
“When I saw the wreckage, I couldn’t imagine that there’d be anybody alive in there, but the people that were there said there was, so I jumped in and we were able to get her out of there,” Decker said.
Decker said the woman was in a lot of pain and both of her legs were broken.
Provided by Sky Decker
Video footage provided to Houston Public Media shows Decker performing those rescue efforts. Decker said he was able to get the woman out from seats that had broken loose in the plane and were blocking her exit.
Decker also said he was able to pull a deceased man out of the plane.
Decker’s wife, Katie, told Houston Public Media that Decker was in a plane crash when he was younger. She said she thinks that’s part of what made him act so courageously during Monday’s tragedy.
“I’m in the water all the time. I’m a diver and I’m just kind of familiar with it. It just seemed like the natural thing to do to me,” Sky Decker said.
Provided by Sky Decker
Decker’s son, also named Sky Decker, was near his father the entire time, helping out.
“I think my main goal was just to try to get some footage to maybe help out the cops or something,” he said.
The two were still processing what happened hours afterward.
“I don’t think it’s really hit me,” the elder Decker said. “I can say it just doesn’t seem real. I’m like, ‘That really just happened today?’ “
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