Storm Sinks Woman’s Cuba-Florida Swim

MIAMI — An exhausted Australian distance swimmer, battered by a stormy night inside a shark cage, ended her attempt to swim unassisted the 110 miles from Havana to Key West, Fla., when she reached U.S. territorial waters Sunday.

Susie Maroney, who was trying to become the first person to swim solo across the Florida Straits, was about 10 miles off the Florida Keys when she was pulled from the water, dehydrated and disoriented after reaching her revised goal of U.S. waters.

“She just made it,” her mother, Pauline Maroney, told Associated Press by phone before rushing to greet her 21-year-old daughter.

Just before her daughter stopped her swim, Mrs. Maroney said: “She’s quite dehydrated. She’s sort of hallucinating, keeps thinking people are giving her different times to stop. She’s been vomiting, and we had to put her out in open sea, which was another concern.”

Maroney was treated at Lower Keys Florida Health System in Key West and was released late Sunday, said nursing supervisor Ron Brown.

“She came in with mild dehydration. She felt well enough to sign herself out and left,” Brown said.

Swim coordinator Hugh Rule said a storm blew up at about 9 p.m. EDT Saturday with no warning and lasted six hours, creating conditions that were extremely hard on the swimmer.

“She was getting beat up from one side to the other,” Rule said. “She was getting bashed up against the side of the mesh cage. The conditions were precisely what we didn’t want to have.”

By the time Maroney came aboard one of the escort boats, she had made it more than nine-tenths of the way across the Straits, which separate Havana from Key West.

Maroney started her trip from Havana early Saturday as a crowd of several hundred watched from shore.

In more than 50 tries by swimmers to cross the Straits that have been recognized by the Swimming Hall of Fame, none has been successful.

After 20 miles Saturday, Maroney decided to swim outside her shark cage because the waves were tossing it around, “causing too much water to go down her throat,” said Connie Pignatiello, president of a company that owns a boat that traveled alongside the swimmer.

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While Maroney was swimming outside the 28-by-8-foot shark cage Saturday afternoon, “a 40-foot whale swam right by and she was real excited,” Pignatiello said.

But calmer seas had allowed Maroney to use the anti-shark cage, keep up a steady pace and swim 42 miles by Saturday night, Pignatiello said.

Maroney was not allowed to grab the side of the anti-shark cage, touch the bottom or get on board the boat for a break. She did not sleep, instead treading water while taking breaks in the cage.