There is a picture of the photographer in the water with the mountains in the background at this site. They look close to shore to me, supposedly less than a half mile. I wonder if they were at least swimming towards the shore. The photographer doesn't look that old to me, but I think he is one of the ones, they took to the hospital. He had time to take a selfie, an underwater shot of the plane, and a video, but couldn't start swimming to shore.
I guess he was 39 but wearing work jeans, steel toed boots long sleeve shirt in one interview he talked about thinking abut getting rid of boots and clothing but was concerned about reef and rocks as he approached shore...he survived, obviously he made the right decision..no redoes on calamities