re: Guide Boat Capsized on Toledo without a licensed captain

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They went out in the early morning on a calm, beautiful day. My parents had experience on this lake for over 35 years. Before taking off after fishing, Dad made sure everyone had their life jackets on. It was overcast, but calm.
My parents have never seen anything like this before. All of a sudden, a storm picked up on their way back to the marina around noon, with 8-16 ft swells out of NO WHERE due to a water spout (a tornado on water).
The boat lifted into the air like a kite and flipped. But a split second before it flipped, my dad thought IF THIS BOAT FLIPS, the cabin door must be open or everyone would be trapped. He intuitively pulled open the cabin door. If he wouldn’t have done this, they would be all dead.
As the boat flipped, Dad held his body in the doorway to keep the wind pressure from closing it, and ultimately, keeping the water pressure from closing them in.
When the boat flipped, my mom, Jerilyn, Macy, Lloyd, and the fishing guide were trapped inside, as the water is rushing in, the cabin coming down over them. After holding the door open, my dad jumped away in a split second before the boat completely submerged with water.
At one point, they could only barely see each other, water quickly rising to eye level. My mom says she thought it was over. She screamed, “We are all going to die in here!” She took one last breath, inches from the ceiling with the only oxygen she had left… with the ceiling closing in and hardly any light left.
Trying to escape, Mom’s lifejacket got snagged on things in the cabin and she truly thought she was going to die. Somehow she got loose. Mom started swimming remembering a breath technique she learned in scuba diving at age 16. She started blowing bubbles out of her nose when she ran out of air.
This is where it gets wild. God showed Mom a horizontal spectrum of light under that dark water in the cabin. Keep in mind there is no sunlight period outside. And she was guided out. She has no idea how except God’s grace.
My dad was hanging on to the side of a pounding, bouncing upside down pontoon, holding on for dear life taking breaths between 8-16ft waves. He was looking in the water for everyone, screaming names, but was starting to accept everyone was trapped underneath.
Listening to my dad say this was gut wrenching, but when recalling, his voice cracks into tears, “I believed your beautiful mother was gone, the love of my life gone.”
But GOD. My mom popped up in her life jacket and they locked eyes. Lloyd and the guide popped up as well. They climbed on top of the boat, where dad blocked flying debris.
Dad’s phone was still in his pocket and miraculously told Siri to call 911…. In a place with usually low to no bars. My dad’s phone was water logged after this. What a miracle he didn’t drop it in the struggle of hanging on for dear life and holding my mom.
They were all screaming, rebuking the waves and lightening, crying out to God, knowing Macy and Jerilyn were stuck underwater, praying for an air pocket.
They all held on for at least an hour in a huge storm, taking breaths between huge swells of water over them, knowing their friends who are like are family must be gone beneath the boat, waiting for rescue help to come.

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