The last person to see someone alive is always the first one to be questioned, but let's be fair, he didn't let her face plop in the water, she was wearing a life preserver which was designed to keep the head OUT of the water, and he did say she was UNRESPONSIVE.
How would he have ascertained that she was unresponsive? Might it be because he attempted to get a response from her and that's how he reached that conclusion?
By most accounts, they were in the water for an hour. Are we asking why he didn't keep hold of an unresponsive woman for an hour until rescue?
Even the fellow who rescued one of the survivors passed her by and picked up someone else. Methinks that Yamamoto would have been able to tell if someone was deceased or had just fainted. The rescue fellow apparently knew she was dead by just looking at her.
Thank you for your reasoned observations. OK, we should be fair. Agreed. Also, I wasn’t there in Yamamoto’s shoes.
Oftentimes, I view things through the prism of my own eyes, then coin a response.
In other words- you drop dead next to me in the water, or are unresponsive, and your head is above the water, I’m either keeping ahold of you, or tying something to you, to keep you with me, corpse or not. In fact, I would be orchestrating the group to close in and form a circle, so that each of us could keep an eye on each other and lend encouragement. It’s my nature.
Maybe Yamamoto will offer more, dissuading my cynical opinions, and if so, I will apologize for my reactionary, suspect behavior.
Protocols don’t allow Coast Guard rescuers to decide that a person is dead just by looking at them. According to the protocols, the times they can skip doing CPR on a person is if they are obviously dead (decapitated, charred, have heart, lungs, or liver separated from the rest of the body, or have rigor mortis which sets in about 2 hours after death at normal temperatures, later if the body is cold) OR if they are more than 30 minutes away from medical help.
If the Coast Guard spokeswoman was correct that the Coast Guard swimmers pulled 3 people out of the water, then they never did rescue Fuddy - instead, two Coast Guard rescuers passed her by, and one claimed to the media that he did it because the protocols required it of him. But that’s not what the protocols say, and the Coast Guard rescue swimmers’ guide gives instructions on how to rescue an unresponsive person from the water.