A Night in July Beneath a Crescent Moon

A story of the US Coast Guard on a mission to stop a suicide attempt

One Night in July: Beneath the Crescent Moon
It was July 2nd, 1966, a Saturday night, and the air hung thick and humid, promising nothing but more sweltering discomfort. I was trapped on a river barge, a floating steel coffin, stationed at the mouth of the Mississippi River's Industrial Canal, just a stone's throw downstream from the vibrant pulse of the French Quarter. My current view? The drab, peeling ceiling of a metal shed the Coast Guard, with its trademark dry wit, called the "Shack."
This was our humble abode, shared with two other Coast Guardsmen: Sweeney, a 2nd class Boatswain's Mate, the grizzled leader of our meager crew; and Swanda, a 3rd Class Engineman, whose grease-stained hands kept our patrol boat's heart beating. I, a mere Seaman, held the lowest rung on this ladder, destined for the drudgery.
The Shack itself was perched atop the barge where our 40-foot patrol boat, USCG 40506, perpetually bobbed. This wasn't just a duty station; it was our 24-hour gilded cage, where we ate, slept, and waited. Our furnishings were Spartan: a single card table with three mismatched chairs, a buzzing refrigerator, a metal file cabinet, and four bunks – my own, a top bunk, currently serving as a stage for my existential dread. A sad little counter clung to one wall, sparsely adorned with a few plates, silverware, a relic of a can opener, a perpetually stained coffee pot, four cups, a hot plate, a lone frying pan, and a single pot. The file cabinet doubled as an archive for daily logs and a cramped storage unit for cleaning supplies. Perched precariously on its top were our lifelines: a two-way radio and a telephone. Two windows offered glimpses of the outside world, one struggling against the oppressive heat with a rattling, ineffective window-mounted air conditioner. The fresh water, a luxury, trickled from a garden hose snaked from a levee spigot, tied to our gangway, then coiled onto the barge. A toilet? A forgotten fantasy.
This cramped, isolated outpost had been my reality every third day for four long months, a mind-numbing "24 on – 48 off" rhythm. Our shifts began with the rising sun at 0800 hours. Our true home, the Coast Guard Captain of the Port facility, lay a distant eight miles away on the lakefront – a world away from this gritty stretch of river where maritime law and security were our solitary domain.
As 2100 hours approached, the sun, a fiery orb, had surrendered to the horizon about thirty minutes prior. Darkness should have claimed the river, yet it didn't. Peering through the grimy window, I saw it: a full moon, a luminous pearl hanging in a cloudless sky, casting an ethereal glow over the patrol boat tied alongside the barge. It was, undeniably, a beautiful night. And yet, a shiver traced its way down my spine. Call me superstitious, but a full moon, I've always believed, stirs the chaos within people. I hoped, with a fervent ache, that tonight wouldn't be the night it proved me right.
My eyelids felt heavy, surrender imminent. Reveille, a cruel mistress, called at 0500 hours. Daily orders demanded an early morning harbor watch before the shift change. Twenty minutes to pull on my uniform, check the boat, and then, just before official sunrise, we’d shove off. The harbor tour, a grueling hour-plus loop, would take us upriver to "9-Mile Point" and back down to the ship anchorage, two miles below our Shack. Back by 0700, rigid deadlines looming: Sweeney's patrol log, Swanda's engine logs, and my own endless cycle of cleaning the boat, hosing down the barge, and tidying the Shack. My eyes closed, and oblivion claimed me.
The jarring shriek of the telephone ripped me from sleep, sending me leaping from my top bunk, fumbling with my clothes before the realization dawned: not reveille, but the phone. Sweeney's hushed "yes, sir" punctuated the silence. He slammed down the receiver, snatched his uniform, and bellowed, "We've got a jumper! Grab your gear and get to the boat, NOW!"
Within seconds, we were aboard USCG 40506, the twin 671 cubic inch Cummins diesel engines grumbling to life beneath Sweeney’s practiced hand. These weren't speed demons; their propellers were designed for towing, not breaking records.
"Where are we headed?" I asked, my voice still thick with sleep.
"The Mississippi River Bridge," Sweeney grunted, his eyes fixed on the murky expanse ahead.
A life hung in the balance: a man teetering on the edge of the Mississippi River Bridge, threatening to jump. The police, their hands tied, needed us below, ready to pluck him from the unforgiving current. The bridge, a mere mile upstream, felt like an eternity with our work props fighting the seven-knot current. Even at full throttle, it would take us four to five agonizing minutes to reach him. The river beneath the bridge, a black abyss, plunged 150 feet deep, its surface concealing a treacherous undercurrent. A fall from fifteen stories, if not instantly fatal, promised shattered bones and unconsciousness from submerged debris. We'd have one shot, and one shot only. We had to be there, precisely there, or he'd be swallowed by the current, surfacing miles downstream, if he surfaced at all. Most who survived the impact drowned, unable to break free from the river's relentless pull.
Against all odds, we arrived before he jumped. Positioning the boat in that furious current was a dance with danger. Sweeney, a seasoned veteran of these tragic standoffs, kept a calculated distance. A miscalculation, and the jumper could land on our deck, a grotesque, unimaginable horror.
My role was grimly simple: sit on the engine cover and watch. The full moon, a silent witness, made it eerily easy to track the figure on the bridge. Sweeney held the wheel, his face grim, while Swanda, ever vigilant, acted as a second spotter. The time: 2350 hours.
The jumper, a tormentor in his indecision, toyed with us, and with his own life. The police had halted traffic on the bridge, and we sat below, adrift in a purgatorial wait. The minutes bled into hours. By 0100, my patience had evaporated, replaced by a raw, bone-deep weariness. Someone up there, I assumed, was trying to talk him down, but this agonizing tableau felt endless. In a surge of frustrated exhaustion, I began to shout, my voice raw and desperate, "Jump! Jump! It's your only way out, jump!"
Sweeney, despite the gravity of the situation, let out a startled laugh, then, with a shake of his head, ordered me to stop.
Another hour crawled by. Then, without warning, a cry, shrill and desperate, sliced through the night from the bridge. The boat engines idled, their hum barely a whisper against the rising crescendo of urgency. We strained to make out the words, but they were lost to the wind. My eyes scoured the bridge; the jumper was gone. Suddenly, a fleeting shadow, a blur of humanity, flashed past me and plunged into the inky blackness below. He missed our boat by mere feet, the ensuing splash drenching me in an icy baptism. The realization hit me like a physical blow.
Swanda, reacting instantly, snapped his spotlight onto the churning water where the man had vanished. The Mississippi, a river of liquid mud, swallowed light, revealing only its restless surface. Sweeney, a master of instinct, killed the engines, silencing the propellers, a desperate measure to prevent a gruesome encounter. He grabbed a second spotlight, joining Swanda in a frantic search of the surface. Sirens wailed, a discordant symphony as police cars materialized on the levee above. On a nearby dock, an ambulance, its lights flashing, added to the macabre circus.
Sweeney and Swanda converged their beams a few yards downstream from the impact point, the boat drifting backward, relentless. Swanda spotted him first, about thirty feet behind us, surfacing face up. Dead or alive? It was impossible to tell. I called out, my voice hoarse, but received no reply. Sweeney, his face etched with grim determination, restarted the engines, easing us closer. I grabbed a boat hook with one hand, my other hand gripping the transom, and stretched precariously over the stern, desperate to snag him, to get him to grasp the hook. Leaning as far as my body would allow, I snagged his shirt. At that precise, critical moment, a submerged log or debris slammed into him, jerking him violently away. My grip on the boat hook held, but the transom slipped from my grasp, and in a sickening lurch, I tumbled backward into the frigid depths. My second, and far more critical, mistake: I let go of the boat hook.
A vivid, terrifying flashback: "Survival Swimming" during boot camp. The company commander's booming voice, echoing in the darkness of my mind, warning us of disorientation in night waters, how easily one could lose all sense of up or down when submerged. "First, don't panic. Next, exhale, if possible, and follow the bubbles. They'll always rise." If only I hadn't let go of that boat hook. I could have pulled myself to the surface, tethered to the jumper, who was already floating.
My lungs screamed, a searing agony, for oxygen. I managed a small exhalation, feeling the precious bubbles brush past my chin. I was facing straight down. I twisted upward, praying to surface clear of the boat. I must be close, so close, when BAM! Something immense slammed into my back, a crushing blow that stole my breath and threatened to drag me into unconsciousness. My eyes fluttered open, registering a glimmer of light in the murky depths – a spotlight. I kicked, propelled by a primal urge, towards it, but my lungs burned, a fire consuming me. I couldn't hold my breath another second. It was too late. I wouldn't make it.
Then, a strange, blissful calm. The pain in my lungs vanished. A sweet drowsiness enveloped me, a gentle pull towards sleep.
Suddenly, a violent pounding on my chest, a rhythmic, brutal assault. A cacophony of voices, a blur of sound. I tried to tell them to stop, to leave me alone, but my voice was lost. A racking cough tore through me, and then, a desperate gasp for air. My eyes fluttered open to a kaleidoscope of flashing lights and a sea of faces staring down at me. I sucked in deep, shuddering breaths. The one who'd been pounding on my chest, an EMS tech, asked if I knew my name, where I was. Confusion clouded my mind. What was happening?
Memory flooded back, a torrent of chaotic images. The EMS guy helped me sit up, and there, a vision of pure relief, stood Sweeney and Swanda. As the EMS technicians checked my vitals, the guys recounted the frantic rescue, how I'd teetered on the brink of drowning. After I'd gone under, Swanda, they said, had relentlessly scanned the surface with his spotlight while Sweeney, seizing another boat hook, had frantically "probed" the water for me. Then, miraculously, my hand had broken the surface, just a few feet away. They'd snagged me, hauled me into the boat, and sped to the dock, a mere hundred yards away, where the ambulance and EMS crew waited. Swanda had tried artificial respiration on the boat, but it was the EMS crew who had truly brought me back from the abyss. The EMS technician, his voice grave, affirmed Swanda’s quick actions had been instrumental in saving my life.
The EMS technicians insisted on taking me to the emergency room, but I refused. "It's not necessary," I told them, my voice still weak. "I'm feeling just fine. We have doctors at the Coast Guard station if I need further assistance."
Seeing my vitals seemed stable, they reluctantly agreed. Sweeney and Swanda helped me back aboard USCG 40506. Sweeney fired up the engines as Swanda untied us from the dock, and we turned downriver, heading back to the Shack. A somber silence hung between us. The jumper… they hadn't been able to save him. And the crushing weight of it settled on me: it was my fault. They'd had to rescue me instead. How utterly, devastatingly selfish.
It was 0315. Reveille in an hour and forty-five minutes. Wrapped in a scratchy wool blanket, I sank onto the warm engine cover for the ride home. A cloudless sky and a full moon. It was a beautiful night. And yet, somehow, it felt irrevocably tainted.