Collier family helps rescue Cuban migrants off coast of the Florida Keys

The three men were weak and dehydrated, and their hands and feet were swollen. They couldn’t contain their tears of relief after hitting the deck of the boats that rescued them off the coast of Key West.

James Fitzek, of Golden Gates Estates, and his family got two of the men aboard his boat. His friend, Cpt. Don Hiller of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, took the third man on his boat.

“They were really sunburnt,” Fitzek said. “They were in bad shape. They collapsed on the back deck as soon as they got on the boat. We were trying to get water into them, get Gatorade into one of the guys going into shock and cover them with blankets.”

Fitzek and Hiller spent a sunny July 7 with their families and some friends out on the water touring Fort Jefferson and the Dry Tortugas, grilling and spearfishing before heading back to land. 

The day was beautiful until it wasn’t, as is the case with Florida summers.

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Just as storms started rolling in, they saw something on the horizon that didn’t look quite right and went to investigate.

They found three men clinging to a piece of rubber more than 40 miles off the coast of Key West.

“They were basically on a truck tire,” Fitzek said.

Hiller and Fitzek later learned the men had been out at sea at least four days. The men spoke only Spanish, but Fitzek and Hiller didn’t need their words to know they needed help. 

Fitzek and Hiller tried calling the U.S. Coast Guard on their VHF radios but couldn’t get through. They decided not to wait for the Coast Guard and piloted their boats to shore.

“They were so far west, I’m pretty sure they never would have hit Florida,” Hiller said. “I’m not sure anyone would have ever known what happened to them.”

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Hiller and Fitzek’s families tended to the men — and some cried in relief with them — the whole way back to land. The sea was choppy, afternoon storms brought lightning and there were “water spouts all over,” Hiller described.

“It was nasty there for a while,” he said.

When the boats reached Coast Guard Sector Key West, one of the migrants was taken to an area hospital for treatment of severe dehydration. Hiller and Fitzek said they learned the men’s boat had exploded after leaving Cuba, and they suffered burns.

The two other men were taken to a Coast Guard cutter and medically evaluated, according to Ensign Karrie Jeffries, a public affairs officer for Coast Guard Sector Key West. One of the men was taken to a hospital for treatment of burns, she said. The third man never left the cutter and was taken back to Cuba.

The condition of the two men who were taken to the hospital is not known. It was not clear whether they had already been repatriated or if they would be.

The Cuban Adjustment Act essentially allowed Cubans who reached American land to remain in the country legally and become eligible for permanent residency a year later. The first iteration of the policy, enacted in 1966, allowed all Cubans who reached U.S. waters to stay in the country.

In 1995, the Clinton administration changed the policy, which colloquially became known as the “wet-foot, dry-foot policy,” to only allow Cubans who made it to shore to stay in the country. 

The Obama administration announced the end of wet-foot, dry-foot in January  2017, making Cubans who come to the U.S. without visas eligible for deportation.

The rescue was an eye-opening moment for his family, Fitzek said. 

“We talked about just what type of situation you would have to be in to set yourself adrift across the ocean to try to find a better life,” he said. “It’s hard for us to imagine. What would it take for you to take that same risk, and at what point would you do that?”

Immigration debates and tensions aside, Fitzek said putting a face to the immigration issue changes things.

“It’s a good reminder that we’re all human and we’re talking about people’s lives,” Fitzek said. “When you see it up close and personal, it just makes it very real.”

Fitzek’s daughter, Hailey, was on the boat with her mom, dad and brother during the rescue. She said she was struck by how much gratitude the men showed during the rescue despite the emotional and physical stress they were under.

“They shook our hands,” Hailey Fitzek, 18, said. “To see those people — how much emotion they showed, how grateful and kind they were even though they were so weak — it was a crazy experience.”

Hailey Fitzek said living in conservative Southwest Florida can feel like a “bubble,” but the rescue made her family grateful for their blessings and humbled by the plight of people whose lives they can’t fathom.

Hiller, who has worked for the Monroe sheriff’s office for 33 years, grew up in the Keys and remembers the mass emigration of more than 125,000 Cubans to Florida after the Mariel boatlift in 1980. A housing and jobs crisis prompted the Castro regime to allow Cubans who wanted to emigrate to the U.S. to board boats at the Port of Mariel, about 25 miles west of Havana.

He said throughout his law enforcement career, sometimes it seemed like every day he would see or hear of Cuban migrants making it to shore or the side of highways in the Keys. He went on search-and-rescue missions and sometimes recovered the bodies of migrants who died at sea. 

Now, he can’t remember the last time he saw or heard of migrants making it to shore.

“It was startling to me that they were coming and how they were coming,” Hiller said. “It’s a hell of a risk.”

Hiller said the rescue was a team effort and was grateful the Fitzeks were right alongside him helping the men. 

“This isn’t politics,” Hiller said. “This is strictly human beings whose lives were in danger. It doesn’t matter if they were on the side of the road or in the water. These people were desperate, they needed help, and that was it. We loaded them up and made the journey together.”