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thedrifter
06-07-07, 02:32 PM
Marine rescues man from drowning in ocean
By Trista Talton - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jun 7, 2007 14:04:26 EDT

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — Strong currents that claimed the lives of two Marines last month could have claimed a third victim had a Marine not intervened.

Cpl. Jared Bultinck, stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., saved the life of a 19-year-old tourist from Liberia while they were swimming off Pine Knoll Shores beach on May 26.

Bultinck, a motor transport operator with Marine Wing Support Squadron 271, said he wasn’t thinking about the recent drownings of two Marines off the North Carolina coast when he saw the man struggling to keep afloat.

“I just saw him go under, and I knew if I didn’t do something … that’s our job, to save people,” he said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

He and his wife were enjoying a relaxing day of surf and sun on May 26. Bultinck, 21, of Chicago, was swimming about 40 feet offshore when he saw a man struggling another 20 feet out.

“His head went underwater, and his arms went straight up,” Bultinck said.

He swam to the man, just slightly smaller than him at about 5’10” and 150 pounds, dove beneath the water and lifted him up to catch his breath. Bultinck said he could feel the current pulling on his legs as he pushed the man up.

“By the time I’d actually got to him, he was so tired, he was more or less completely limp,” he said.

Bultinck held the man with one arm as he battled two- to three-foot waves back to shore. When he was about 30 feet out, the waves helped push him toward land.

As the man struggled to catch his breath on dry land, emergency responders were called to the scene. Bultinck was there to give them what information he’d gathered from the man, who spoke little English. Other than suffering from exhaustion and a stomach ache from swallowing salt water, the man was fine, Bultinck said. He shook Bultinck’s hand and thanked him.

Bultinck has been told by one of his senior Marines to “expect some kind of surprise” for his actions, he said.

And he’s set his sights on achieving the highest swim qualification — level 1. He’s currently a level 2.

“I’m going to go for it this year,” he said.

Riptides were blamed for the deaths of two Marines last month. Lance Cpl. James Thomas Bullen was based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., when he drowned May 12. On May 5, a Cherry Point-based Marine, Master Sgt. Michael Wert, died while trying to rescue two young children struggling in the Atlantic Ocean.

Ellie