‘I Knew if I Stopped, I Would Die’ : Survivor Describes 8-Hour Ordeal in Ocean

Tears rolled down the cheeks of Jim Sims as he sat in his home here Friday night, describing the horror of nearly eight hours in the cold water off Baja California as one by one his friends from the swamped fishing boat Fish-n-Fool sank from sight.

“I knew if I stopped, I would die,” he said.

Like crew member Cathy Compton, the only other survivor of Thursday’s pleasure fishing trip to Ben Rock off Baja’s San Quintin, the 29-year-old Sims told of seeing a 20-foot wave suddenly break over the top of the rock and come crashing down on the 57-foot charter fishing boat.

The wave, he said, struck the bow and simply flipped the Fish-n-Fool over. “It just went belly up.”

He was thrown into the sea on the far side of the rock along with about six others including Tim York, 25, of Huntington Beach; George Stinson, 40, of Orange; Rusty Paxton, of Riverside, and Ken Baldwin, 65, of Huntington Beach.

“I could hear Cathy yelling on the other side where the boat was, upside down,” Sims recalled. “We couldn’t get to her to help her. We couldn’t get to the life raft. We couldn’t get to the boat.”

Sims was not to know until Friday that Compton was the only other apparent survivor.

He sat telling about it in his small, neat home in Riverside’s La Sierra area stroking a puppy while his wife, Roberta, listened. Sims, a husky, self-employed tile setter, talked softly and calmly. It was a while before the tears began.

He and the five men with him could see San Martin Island about five miles distant, he said. Each of them grabbed a piece of flotsam from the capsized fishing vessel and they began to swim. Sims, who had never before been in the water more than an hour, grabbed a 2-by 2-foot piece of wooden tackle box.

The strong current separated the swimmers.

“The first one to go was Ken Baldwin,” he said. “He started falling behind. After about an hour, he just disappeared. The next one was Rusty. He said he couldn’t make it. I tried to encourage him; to keep him going, but when I turned around, he was gone.”

All Sims could see was the Clorox bottle that Rusty Paxton had been holding on to. It was bobbing by itself.

As the others continued to swim, Sims said, the current kept them separated. In another hour or so, he could see only Stinson and York, both of whom were hanging onto an ice chest. After more than six hours in the water, they were no more than 200 yards off the beach. But the current was dragging at their exhausted bodies and it was getting dark.

“We were kicking hard, trying to get ashore,” Sims said. “Suddenly a current caught us. Tim knew the ice chest couldn’t hold them both any longer. So he left the chest for George. And he swam over to me. He told me not to give up . . . to keep going . . . and he got out in front.”

Then, suddenly, Sims heard Tim York screaming, apparently stricken with cramps. Sims tried to reach him, but couldn’t.

“Tim gave his life for George,” Sims said. “And he saved mine . . . I’ve never been much of a swimmer. I’m overweight. I smoke. Tim’s encouragement is what kept me going.”

But George slipped from view, also.

“I knew if I stopped, I would die,” Sims said. “I saw the beach. And I could see lights. It was about 7:30 by then and I’d been in the water seven hours. I started yelling.”

Some Mexican fishermen heard his shouts. They came out in a boat and pulled him to safety.

“If they hadn’t come out, I wouldn’t have made it,” Sims acknowledged. “I owe them my life, and I don’t even know their names.”

Sims, who was taken by helicopter to Sharp Memorial Hospital, where he was treated and released, was asked what he would do now.

“I’ve got a lot of funerals to go to,” he said.

Contributing to this story was Times staff writer Jack Jones in Los Angeles.