Lost at sea

Ben pollock, his cousin frank doolin and their boys lazedon the deck of his 20-foot fishing boat. It had been one ofthe finest fishing days in memory—a fresh spring day in May2004, during which they had caught a good 70 sea bass, groupersand grunts, enough to pack everyone’s freezer.The two men and their oldest sons, Gabriel Pollockand Michael Doolin, and another cousin, JordanStokes, had been out in the Gulf of Mexicosince early morning, and now were enjoying the lastwarm rays of sunshine before turning back to port in Hudson,Florida. About 40 miles and two hours from shore,and an hour before sunset, they were looking forwardto taking their catch home.

Pollock had recently bought the1972-vintage craft and had taken it fora test run in the rougher waters of theAtlantic. Like most older boats, it hadnot been “foamed” (insulated with materialto keep it buoyant if it capsized).Doolin had an uneasy feeling aboutthis and told Pollock he wouldn’t goout in an unfoamed vessel. But Pollockkidded with him until he relented.Now as they turned off the reef, theboat seemed a bit sluggish. Pollockfigured the hull had taken on somewater. Easy to remedy. He pulled theplug from the hull to let gravity drainit as they motored back toward shore.Several minutes later, the engine,out of gas, sputtered and died. Time tofill up from the spare tank.

Doolin had gotten little sleepthe night before—an hourat best. But during that brieftime, he’d had a nightmare.He dreamed about his sonMichael—and in the dreamMichael was drowning. It stayed withhim, pricked his consciousness, as heheaded to the back of the boat. Meanwhile,Pollock replaced the plug in thehull, grabbed the fuel and a funnel,and prepared to refill the side tank.But now things were happeningvery quickly. The stern dipped low inthe water. Waves began to wash overthe sides. It felt like a hand was pushingthe boat down. Doolin grabbed afive-gallon plastic bucket and beganto bail. “Get the fuel in,” he yelled.Pollock bounded over. Theydumped in the gas. Pollock frantically turned the key, trying to get the engineto crank. But it wouldn’t catch—it was already underwater.“Grab the life vests. Grab anythingthat will float!” Doolin called out. Theboys jumped, and the men were flunginto the water as the boat rolled.Doolin gathered Michael, 13, andJordan, 12, close to him as loose gearbegan popping up all around them.He took out his cell phone, which hekept in a plastic bag—and punched911. Nothing. They were too far out.“Get the rope,” he yelled to Pollock.The anchor was pulling the boatdown. And they would need the yellowplastic line. Pollock and Gabriel,the oldest boy at 14, sawed it off usingthe edge of the propeller. Then, balancedon the rocking, overturned boat,the younger two used it to tie themselvestogether.

“You boys just sit here,” Doolin said,climbing aboard. “Don’t let this thingtip over, because we might have to beout here all night.” Outwardly theyoungsters remained calm, but Doolinknew they must be terrified.Pollock and Gabriel dove below tolook for equipment and popped up inan air pocket—a pocket that reekedwith gas fumes. Gabriel kicked his wayback up and gathered life vests floatingon the surface. While the othersput the vests on, Pollock continued todive, retrieving flares, a flashlight, aknife, an orange distress flag from insidethe boat. He put these items intoa small ice chest bobbing on thewaves, and went down again.Then came the hissing sound of escaping air. The boat was sinking.“Jump away, so it can’t suck youunder,” Doolin yelled.

A moment later, the stern tippeddownward; the bow pointed to the sky.Their largest ice chest, a king-sizedwhite Igloo, about five feet long bythree feet wide, was still tightlywedged between the steering columnand the hull. It was packed with foodand water, but was buoyant. They Pollock assured them help wouldcome. Emulating his dad, Gabriel exudedbravado. “Man, this is nothing,”he claimed. “The Marines do this allthe time.”

But Doolin knew the worst was stillahead. Within minutes, the gulf wouldswallow the big orange sun. No onecould see them now. Nobody wouldbe looking. Pollock had told their familiesthat they might stay out an extra could use it to keep afloat. Pollock decidedto risk one more dive.He swam downward and grabbedthe cooler’s handle. It wouldn’t budge.The sinking boat pulled him downwith it, faster and faster. He yankedagain, and it shot to the surface like atorpedo. Man and ice chest bouncedout of the water.

“Whoo-hoo!” Pollock called jubilantly,swimming with the huge Iglooto the others. After donning a lifejacket, he tied himself between his sonand Jordan. Supplies were floating upall around them, and without thinking,Pollock opened another smallcooler. Dozens of bloody fish spilledout. “Good grief, we’re nothing butchum for the sharks,” he cried. “We’vegot to get out of here. Swim!”

When they looked back from a hundredyards away, the boat was gone.The five of them were clinging to abobbing ice chest in the open sea.day—not to give it a thought if theydidn’t come home that night.Temperatures fell. The gulf wind,soothing in the afternoon, suckedwarmth from their bodies. Water temperaturesin the 70s could bring onhypothermia within three hours. Theyshivered; their teeth chattered. Andthe fathers hugged the boys close.

It was about 10:15 p.m. A shrimp boatwas speeding along a mile or so away.“Give me a flare!” Pollock shouted. Ona night as dark as this, a flare wouldsurely catch the eye of anyone ondeck. He set it off, expecting a widearc of flame. But the device barelyflashed up an inch before dying.

“That was a flare?” Doolin said, halflaughing.Pollock popped a second.It shot up a bit higher, then fizzled.A third sputtered and flickered out,giving no more light than a matchstick.The flares he had retrieved were

the oldest ones he’d had on board.The flashlight! Its beam might beweaker, but would shine longer. Pollockrummaged through the smallcooler where he had stowed salvageditems. Where was it? It had to be here.But it was gone. They all watched theshrimp boat disappear.
Every bone in Doolin’s body was rattling.It would be so easy to give upnow, to close his eyes and allow thesea to take him. But he had to stay inthis for Michael.
A tall, thin boy, Michael had almostno body fat to insulate him from thecold. He was lethargic now, at timesbarely conscious. “Wake up, wake up,”Doolin urged. The boy mumbled, andDoolin held him close, trying to forgetthe dream of the night before, prayingthat his son wouldn’t die.
The other boys had also becomeweak and disoriented. Gabriel had thedry heaves from salt water he’d swallowed.His father cradled him, rubbedhis arms to keep him warm. Jordanseemed to be hallucinating. The mencouldn’t understand what he was saying,but they understood his fear.
As dawn broke, Gabriel and Jordanperked up some. Michael was tooweak to keep his head up. Doolin andPollock tied him to the handle of theice chest in order to keep his face outof the water. They had been adrift foralmost 12 hours with no relief fromthe cold. It would be hours still beforethe sun warmed the air and sea.They swam east toward the shore.Jellyfish stung their legs, but theypushed on. By 7 a.m., staring at thevast emptiness, Pollock felt despair.Where were all the boats? They hadbeen an hour from shore when theirown went down. They should be see-ing fishing vessels out on the watersoon. But would the boats see them?Doolin understood that nobody wasgoing to spot five heads bobbing justabove the water. He had fished theFlorida Keys and knew that fishermenlooked for diving frigate birds to pointthem to fish. What could they toss inthe air that would resemble a bird divingfor prey? They had the small whitecooler—that would have to do.Sometime past eight o’clock, twoboats appeared, far southwest of them.Doolin threw the little cooler into theair. Pollock tossed their distress flag.Gabriel and Jordan joined in, shouting,yelling, throwing whatever theycould. The boats sped past.
Doolin took a close look at Michael.He was as limp as a dishrag, barelyconscious, no longer even trembling.Haunted by his dream, Doolin blamedhimself for bringing his boy fishing,and for their predicament.
Joe miley, James Fullertonand his wife, Carol, wereheaded to a fishing hole 35miles out from Hudson.With Miley at the wheel,InTheCooler sped along at 24knots. After more than an hour poundingover the waves, Miley stopped togive them all a break. Idling, the boatacted like it had picked up some seagrass. As Miley checked the prop, theboat drifted south.
When he finished, he glanced to thehorizon. Something was moving. Itwas just a speck. Birds diving, ormaybe sea turtles. That could mean a reef. And reefs meant fish. “You mindif we go downrange a couple ofmiles?” he asked Fullerton.Fullerton was reluctant. “Man,we’ve got a ways to go.”
But, if they found fish, Miley said,they wouldn’t have to go any farther.They decided to check it out.Drawing closer, the movementlooked more like debris floating onthe water than birds or turtles. ButMiley pushed on. Maybe that whitething hopping up and down in the airwas a bird after all.Closer still, and he thought fora second that it looked like peopleout there. But it couldn’t be.
“Oh, myGod,” cried Carol Fullerton. “Thereare children in the water.” Now theycould hear shouting and yelling.Tears welled up in Doolin’s eyes asthe boat pulled alongside them. Thepeople on deck helped get Michaeland the other two kids into the boat.Then he and Pollock climbed aboard.A woman wrapped his son in blanketsand towels, while the men poweredthe boat toward shore.
Over and over, Doolin, Pollock andthe boys thanked their rescuers.What to make of Doolin’s dream?Was it a premonition? Coincidence?What we do know is that Michael andthe others survived, healthy and withno lasting effects. We know that theyall owe their lives to a big cooler thatkept them afloat, a little cooler thatflew like a bird, and three fishermenaboard InTheCooler who found themadrift in the open sea.

YOU Be the Judge

If anyone ever needed to findten-year-old Brian Yuzon,a good bet was tocheck down thestreet at JeffBlackburn’s house.Brian often hungout with his palJeff, even thoughhe was afraid ofJeff ’s two familydogs. He was particularlyfrightened ofKemo, a Rottweiler-pitbull mix. In fact, wheneverBrian went to visit Jeff, theBlackburns locked Kemo in a room.

Brian had no reason to think Kemowasn’t safely inside when, on a springday in 2001, he and a couple ofother friends in Long Beach,California, went toJeff ’s home afterschool. The boysheaded into theBlackburns’ backyardand waited asJeff, whose parentsweren’t home, went insideto use the bathroom.When Jeff came out through theback door, Brian was horrified to seeKemo running outside, barking wildly.Jeff yelled for Brian to freeze, but theboy was already racing toward thefront gate. He didn’t make it.

With bared teeth, Kemo lunged andcaught Brian’s arm in his powerfuljaws. Kemo clamped down again andagain as Brian screamed hysterically.The other children tried to pull off theattacking dog, while a neighbor calledfor help. By the time paramedics arrived,the skin on Brian’s upper armand elbow was shredded and hanging.His physical injuriestook nearly three hoursof surgery to repair,leaving Brian with multiplescars and a deepfear of dogs.

Deeply upset, andfacing medical billsthat quickly climbedinto the thousands, theYuzon family broughta lawsuit against theBlackburns—only todiscover that they had no moneyin the bank. So, afterlearning thatthe Blackburnswere renting their housefrom a man named Gerald Collins,the Yuzons reasoned that he, too, wasresponsible for Brian’s injuries. TheYuzons assumed Collins had to haveknown that he was allowing a viciousanimal on his property, because Kemohad escaped several times and frightenedthe neighbors.

And Tracy Blackburn, Kemo’sowner, testified that whenever Collinsvisited the property, she would greether landlord on the front porch. Whilethey talked, Kemo would bark andlunge at the door. She also claimed that Collins once asked her to “pin thedogs up” before an insurance agentwas to inspect the backyard. Whywould Collins do that, the Yuzonswondered, if he didn’t know there wasmore than one dog or that one dogwas fierce? Didn’t the owner have aduty to protect outsiders from anyknown dangers at his rental house?

Gerald Collins hada very different story.He acknowledged thatthe Blackburns’ leaseallowed them to keepa dog, but at the timehe had agreed to thislease, the Blackburns’only dog was a blindspringer spaniel. Collinsalso testified thathe was not only unawareof any other dog on the property,but that he had never seen orheard a dog at all when he showed upat the door of the rental house. Contraryto the Yuzons’ contention, Collinsasserted that he had never heardfrom the neighbors about Kemo’s escapesor seen the dog running wild,and the Blackburns never told him ofany problems with Kemo. He didn’tknow about the danger, Collins said,so how could he be liable for the damagethe dog caused?

Is Collins responsible for Brian’sinjuries? You Be the Judge! Thenread on to see if the court actuallyruled the way you did.

Stroke of Genius

After nearly dying in the OR, anartist comes to life--BY E L L E N S H E R M A N

The skies were crystal clear over theCape Ann Golf Course that day in October1988 when Jon Sarkin, a buttoneddownchiropractor from Gloucester,Massachusetts, bent over to retrieve atee. Sarkin, 35 at the time, suddenly feltan intense physical sensation—a deepshiver—go through him. Everything lookedand sounded different. “I remember thinking,I’m going to die,” he says today.

He drove himself home to his wife, Kim,who knew with just one look that somethingwas wrong. In the weeks that followed, the weirdsensory shift became something much worse. Jonwas intensely sensitive to light and sound, andthe initial shiver became a distressing reverberationin his head. Ultimately it turned into a hellishroar that wouldn’t quit.

For the next several months, he and Kimsearched agonizingly for a cure to the ringing inJon’s ears, a condition known as tinnitus. For acan-do professional like Jon, Kim explained,not having a definitive answerto a medical issue was his worstnightmare—a nightmare he almostdidn’t wake from.

The son of a dentist andhomemaker, Jon Sarkingrew up in Hillside, NewJersey, with a secret passionfor art. But the dutifulstudent set his sightsinstead on a career in architecture,then chiropractic, to satisfy his practicalparents who thought he shouldbecome a doctor. He married KimRichardson, a teacher, in 1986, and thecouple mixed in well with the laidbackbut status-conscious lifestyle ofthe seaside community where theysettled. They soon had a baby boythey named Curtis, but even then Jonrarely slowed down. The only exceptionwas during breaks between patientsat his thriving practice, whenhe quietly doodled or drew imaginativeinvitations to family parties. Hethought that one day, when he retired,he’d turn more fully to creating art;he envisioned himself, an older man,painting at the beach.

Then the ringing began to sound inhis head. After months of seeing specialists,Jon was diagnosed with aswollen blood vessel pressing on hisacoustic nerve. On August 8, 1989, surgeonsin Pittsburgh operated to inserta small Teflon wafer between the offendingvessel and the nerve. The doctorspronounced the surgery a success,and as Jon came to in the recoveryroom, Kim asked the question oneveryone’s mind: “Is the ringinggone?” Jon mouthed the word yes. Andhis family cheered.

A day passed as he recuperated.Then, during a visit with Kim, Jon,who was propped up in his bed, pattedthe covers and called out, “Comehere, Ida.” Ida was the family dog backin Gloucester, hundreds of miles away.In an urgent voice, Kim called for anurse. One of Jon’s doctors came tothe room, gently unwrapped his bandageand found that the wound wasfull of blood. “Please step out now!” heshouted at Kim, and Jon was rushedto the OR.

Once again, Jon went under theknife—only this time the medical teamwas racing to save his life. He had sufferedmassive bleeding and a postoperativestroke. “I was told that I diedon the table and they brought meback,” he explains. The doctors wouldultimately save him, but not withouthaving to remove the entire left sideof his cerebellum, an area of the brainthat controls balance, coordinationand movement.

This time, when Jon came out ofsurgery, there was little cause for rejoicing.“There were tubes everywhere,”says his sister Jane. “He had amachine breathing for him. It wasawful.”

Jon languished in a semi-comatosestate, losing weight and sufferingpneumonia and bleeding ulcers. Buttwo months later, he began to regainconsciousness. The recovery was bittersweet.What soon became clear wasthat he would have to relearn themost basic functions of speech andmovement. He was deaf in one earand suffered from double vision. Kimrecalls that Jon, under a mass of tangledtubes, would squeeze her hand inan effort to communicate. “He’d rollhis eyes, seeming to say, Can you believethis?”

Three and a half months after hissurgery, Jon was finally able to returnto his Gloucester home. He arrived viaa medical van, emerging in a wheelchair.“We were coached beforehandnot to be frightened by how horriblehe looked,” says his long-time friendJohn Keegan. “Jon had been a superstrong,athletic guy. Now his oncemusculararms were like an inch indiameter, and his skin was yellow. He’dlost almost everything.”

But Jon made great physical stridesthrough rehab. Within five months,he was walking and had regainedmost of his strength. Inside him,though, profound emotional changeshad been wrought. While his intelligenceand sharp wit remained intact,Jon was now unfocused and unableto attend to the minutiae of everydaylife. Bills were left unpaid, appointmentsforgotten. He also, for a time,developed all-encompassing obsessions.One was with recycling. SinceGloucester didn’t recycle at the time,he got the idea to send all his family’splastic bottles 500 miles away to hisbrother in the recycle-friendly city ofBuffalo.

The Sarkins had known that the removalof the left cerebellum wouldhave physical consequences, but doctorsdidn’t have a concrete explanationfor the psychological changes.Jon, it seemed, was now devoid of theintangible censors that control whatwe think, what we say and how weact. He would blurt out anything thatcame to mind, no matter how inappropriate.“I was like that characterin the Jim Carrey movie Liar Liar,” herecalls. “I had to say everything I wasthinking. It really was scary.”Social conventions were a thing ofthe past. If he thought someone wasnot interesting, he would walk awaymid-conversation. He’d laugh at thewrong moment. He found himselfhaving trouble empathizing with others.“I would say, ‘I know how youfeel,’ ” Sarkin says, “but inside I wasthinking, What?”

Meanwhile, Kim felt like she’d lostthe anchor of a steady, reliable partner.“He was very much like a teenagerwho has a lack of control over hisemotions,” she says, “whose perspectiveis warped and who is terribly selfabsorbed.I hung in there because Jonis my family. I love him and I believefirmly in looking out for family.” Shealso felt her husband’s core had notchanged. “Jon’s inner personality andvalues remained the same.”“My wife is great,” Jon says in simpleunderstatement. “She was like oneof those dolls that you hit and it alwayspops back up.”In 1990, a year before his secondchild, daughter Robin, was born, Jonfelt that he had relearned enough ofthe social skills required for a healthcare provider and decided to go backto work as a chiropractor. “I wanted tosupport him,” says Kim, “but I wasvery uncomfortable with it, becausehe got so fatigued trying to keep hiscomposure.”The first few months went all right,but it soon became clear that Jon’sheart was no longer in his work. Seeingpatients exhausted him, both physicallyand emotionally. What now firedhim up was the compulsive sketchinghe did in between appointments. Hedrew anything from pointy-hairedpeople to the Chrysler Building, thenscrawled quotations around the images,scrambling the words, creatingwhole new meanings. Lines fromThoreau were interspersed with cutoutsof Elvis or car tail fins. He explains,“Where once my art was verylinear and organized, it became drivenand chaotic.”Jon’s sister Jane, impressed with thework, asked her brother if he mindedif she submitted some of it to the venerableNew Yorker magazine. “I rememberthinking it would be kindacool getting a rejection letter from TheNew Yorker,” Jon says.Then one day, as he sat at his deskfuriously creating one of his “doodles,”the phone rang. The voice on theother end said, “This is The NewYorker.” “First thing I thought,” Jonsays, “was, Well, it’s nice of them tocall with the rejection.” To his surprise,the magazine was accepting notone, but eight, of his drawings.In the spring of 1994, Jon sold hispractice. It was not an easy decision.“He was heartbroken,” says Kim, “butboth of us knew the stress was toomuch for him.” He began to turn toart full-time, not so much as part of aconscious career change but as an outletthat suited him like never before.In art, he had found a place wherehe could express himself withoutworrying how anyone judged him.The transition wasn’t easy for Kim,who had just given birth to their thirdchild, Caroline. Though the family wasreceiving disability payments andKim, in a pinch, could have returnedto teaching, she had reservations. “Mybiggest concern was having to leavethe children to go back to work. Jonwas not someone I could leave themwith. It took me a while to give up theidea of a normal life,” she says.Meanwhile, Jon’s work had caughtthe attention of art dealer Jane Deering.Over the last few years, she hashad successful Jon Sarkin showings ather gallery in Gloucester. “His workis like a shock in its abundance,” shesays. “Pictorially, it’s a puzzle. Theremay be a beautiful pattern. Anotherlevel is the language.”In 2003, the Diane von FurstenbergStudio in Manhattandisplayed Sarkin’s art to an audiencethat included MerylStreep and Diane Sawyer(these days, his pieces can sellfor as much as $10,000). In his inimitablefashion, Sarkin started speakingloudly at the gathering, saying,“That’s Meryl Streep. I can’t believeI’m sitting at the table with her.” Sayshis friend Keegan: “Jon doesn’t alwaysknow when to shut up, but that’s justwho he is now, and you accept him.”Sarkin, who has sold movie rightsto his story to actor Tom Cruise, says,“Sometimes I may get too excited andpeople will stare. But if you make alist of the top ten reasons why youdon’t care what people think, you’dhave to include a near-death experienceright up there at the top.”There are days, though, when hemourns what he has lost. At the beach,he watches teenagers surfing. “I’d loveto take my son windsurfing, and Ican’t,” says Sarkin, who 16 years afterthe stroke still suffers from poor balanceand sometimes uses a cane. Hehas to constantly remember to speakslowly or his speech becomes slurred.“I was in a semi-comatose state,” hesays. “You really don’t ever come outof it completely. I know there are partsof me that aren’t here,” he admits.But his family and friends also knowthat he has emerged on the other sidehaving gained, not just lost. “Daily lifewith Jon can at times be frustratingand exhausting,” Kim says, “but hispositive attributes make us proud.”Communication is the couple’s lifeline.“Jon and I talk to each other allthe time.”Jon and Kim’s youngest child is 11now. Jon Sarkin, the artist, is the onlydad the kids have ever known. Fromtime to time, Sarkin brings them to hisworkplace, where together they createtheir own art projects and help theirfather with his. “They’ll go throughmagazines and say, ‘Use this picture,’” Sarkin says. “Or when I’m drawing,they’ll look over my shoulder andsay, ‘Why don’t you make this guy havethree eyes—or five.’ I love it.”He chuckles. “If I was still a chiropractor,what would they have done?Come to my office and look at thex-ray machine?”Sarkin points to one of his studiowalls, splattered with quotations, imagesof Bob Marley, Oscar Wilde, MartinLuther King, Jr. “This is the way Isee the world now,” he says.“I really think he has a gift that wasunleashed by the stroke,” his sisterJane says. “It comes right from hisbrain onto the page.”It’s been an incredible journey,Sarkin concedes. “People ask what myfuture will be like. Remember the oldBob Dylan documentary, Don’t LookBack? For me it’s ‘Don’t Look Forward.’It’s tremendously weird how I livenow. I don’t fit. That’s very isolating.”He pauses, and a slight smile crosseshis face. “But it’s very liberating at thesame time.”