Burned from head to toe and submerged in Hurricane Harvey’s raging floodwaters, Ruaridh Connellan could feel his strength ebbing away as he clung to just a flimsy branch for survival.
But before the 26-year-old photojournalist could even contemplate letting go, a familiar voice called out through the darkness: ‘Dig deep buddy, dig deep – nobody is dying on my watch.’
The voice was that of his DailyMail.com colleague Alan Butterfield who, along with Connellan and five other men had boarded a rescue boat Monday afternoon only to be electrocuted and tossed overboard when it hit power lines.
Two of the boat’s crew drowned, another two are missing – but Butterfield, Connellan and a third man, Jose Vizueth, clung desperately to trees for 18 hours before they were finally rescued Tuesday – 18 hours later,
Lucky to be alive! Senior reporter Alan Butterfield (right) and photojournalist Ruaridh Connellan were reunited in a Houston hospital on Thursday where they are recovering from their burns and other injuries
The journalists desperately clung to branches and trees as they fought the current for 18 hours waiting to be rescued
Connellan’s miraculous survival owes much to his steely determination to see his family again – and to the dogged persistence of Butterfield who coaxed and cajoled his young friend through the night to keep him from submitting to Hurricane Harvey.
The two men were reunited today for the first time since their harrowing ordeal amid emotional scenes at Houston’s Memorial Hermann Greater Heights Hospital.
‘You remember asking me to tell your girlfriend and your parents that you loved them?’ I was like no way dude, tell them yourself,’ said Butterfield, 54, fighting back tears.
‘I told you we were gonna make it. There was no way that stinky, dirty bayou was going to be my grave.’
The pair hadn’t seen each other since they were whisked to safety two days earlier on a Texas Department of Public Safety rescue boat and taken to separate ends of the hospital’s ER department.
‘I know it sounds cheesy but I had that Gloria Gaynor song ‘I will Survive’ playing constantly in my head because Alan kept promising me we would survive,’ Connellan added.
‘And here we are. Against all the odds – we are alive.’
The two journalists were in Houston covering Hurricane Harvey for DailyMail.com but could have had no idea they were about to make the headlines themselves.
The drama began about 3pm Monday afternoon when they chanced upon a group of volunteers trying to reach an elderly, wheelchair-bound woman trapped by floodwaters.
Butterfield and Connellan board a motorboat with five others but as the vessel tried to navigate Houston’s water-logged Normandy neighborhood the current dragged it towards fallen power lines.
‘I looked over and saw sparks coming from the wires and the transformers,’ said Butterfield, a father-of-two. ‘I knew that if we went into it we would be fried.
‘I leapt off the bow of the boat and the current took me right under the wires, they were a few feet above me. I would be gone if they had touched me.’
Connellan also leaped off the boat to try to swim away but was impeded by his thick rubber raincoat and two heavy cameras slung over both shoulders.
‘I looked over and saw sparks coming from the wires and the transformers,’ said Butterfield, a father-of-two. ‘I knew that if we went into it we would be fried. ‘I leapt off the bow of the boat and the current took me right under the wires, they were a few feet above me. I would be gone if they had touched me.’
‘I was holding on to the flimsiest end of the branch. I helped Alan take off his socks and shoes and pushed him up with one hand while holding on with the other,’ said Connellan
‘I felt my whole body being zapped. I’ve never felt anything like it,’ he told DailyMail.com
‘I was screaming with the pain but then it stopped. I felt relieved for a split second or so and then I felt the electricity again. Then I just started to drift away.’
The trio of Butterfield, Connellan and Vizueth all managed to grab hold of a capsized dinghy that had been latched to their boat but had come loose.
As the floodwaters swept them downstream Butterfield spotted a low-hanging branch and urged them to ditch the dinghy and grab it.
Spanish-speaking Vizueth, 31, managed to quickly clamber up but neither Connellan nor Butterfield, who had suffered a dislocated shoulder, could get a foothold.
‘I was holding on to the flimsiest end of the branch. I helped Alan take off his socks and shoes and pushed him up with one hand while holding on with the other,’ said Connellan.
‘But that left nobody to help me and I just didn’t have the strength to do it by myself. After a while I came to terms with the fact I couldn’t get up there.
‘Rather than wasting my energy pulling myself up, I needed to preserve my strength to hang on to the branch.’
The three survivors were just 200 yards from a freeway but as the hours began to tick by and a police helicopter flew overhead without spotting them, their hopes of a quick rescue began to fade.
While Butterfield and Vizueth clung to the limbs of the tree, Connellan was powerless to do anything aside from gripping on to his branch measuring about 2.5 inches wide.
‘I had been holding on for four or five hours. My arms hurt more and more. I feel like I kept hallucinating, seeing boats and dogs,’ said Connellan.
‘When I thought about just giving up and letting go I would remember my girlfriend Sarah, our dog Leroy and our apartment in New York.
‘The thought of never seeing them again would make my grip stronger.
‘And every time I felt weak I would hear Alan calling out to me. He would say we are gonna survive, you have to get through this.’
Butterfield, who has a 26-year-old son himself called Andrew, was not prepared to see his colleague join the tragic toll of Hurricane Harvey’s victims.
‘You couldn’t talk all that much because the winds were howling and it was raining hard, it sucked, it really did,’ he said.
‘But I I would yell out ‘Ruaridh are you alive?’ I said to him just be tough. Dude you gotta suck it up, go to the deepest depths of your soul. You’re not gonna die, I promise you.
The two men were rushed to the hospital after their 11:45am rescue where Connellan was treated for head to toe burns and lacerations to his hands. He also had bites from spiders and red ants all over his face and neck. Butterfield was treated for his injured shoulder, burns and various cuts and bruises. Both men are expected to make a full recovery
Butterfield (pictured with hood on left) and photojournalist Ruaridh Connellan (right) was one of the seven men onboard a boat when it was electrocuted by submerged power lines in Houston on Monday. They were filmed on a Facebook Live video shortly before the accident
‘I honestly believed it. I just kept saying pray to whatever god you believe in. I never had one thought about us dying.’
In the early hours of the morning Connellan’s branch eventually snapped off and he found himself once more being dragged away by the surging waters.
However he managed to summon up enough strength to swim towards another crop of bushes.
By a stroke of luck, the vegetation he grabbed hold of was tangled up with barbed wire and firmly anchored down.
‘The bush was full of trash and all kinds of unsavory rubbish but it was like a little refuge from the storm,’ Connellan said.
‘Luckily it was only about 60 yards or so from Alan so I could shout back to say I was OK.’
After daybreak the three men decided upon a new survival strategy that would ultimately save their lives: Taking turns to yell for help.
‘There was wind and rain and rushing water so I doubted anyone would ever hear us,’ said Connellan. ‘But a few hours later I hear something – a reply.
‘Someone was shouting back at me. Within half an hour we saw their boat come round the corner. I was the most relieved I’ve ever been in my life.
‘I didn’t have any strength left to climb up so they dragged me into the boat. I was in shivering uncontrollably. I just kept saying thank you to the state trooper for pulling me out.’
Butterfield (left) and Connellan were swept away into the swollen and fast moving Greens Bayou and desperately clung to branches and trees as they fought the current for 18 hours waiting to be rescued
Four of the men haven’t been seen since Monday when their boat was electrocuted by power lines in Houston. Some can be seen above in a Facebook Live video prior to the accident
The two men were rushed to the hospital after their 11:45am rescue where Connellan was treated for head to toe burns and lacerations to his hands.
He also had bites from spiders and red ants all over his face and neck.
Butterfield was treated for his injured shoulder, burns and various cuts and bruises.
Both men are expected to make a full recovery.
Their joy at being reunited was tempered by the knowledge that two of the boat’s other occupants, 33-year-old Jorge Perez, a married father-of-two, and 25-year-old Yahir Vizueth, both drowned.
Two more men, Benjamin Vizueth, 31 and Gustavo Rodriguez-Hernandez, 40, are still missing.
‘These men were just trying to help people in need,’ added Butterfield. ‘My heart goes out to their loved ones and I just hope the missing guys are found.’
Said a spokesperson for DailyMail.com: ‘We are actively working with local authorities to determine the whereabouts of the other occupants of the boat.
‘Our thoughts and prayers are with our reporting team and their families but especially with the families of the search party.’
Gustavo Rodriguez Hernandez (left) is still missing but the body of Jorge Perez (right) was found
Family of the men have been posting photos on social media in a bid to track them down. Yahir Vizuet Rubio (left) was confirmed dead and Benjamin Jimmy Vizueth (right) is still missing
The group is believed to have lost control of their motorboat (above) and drifted towards fallen power lines. The live cables are thought to have sent a powerful electric shock through the craft tossing the seven occupants overboard
Perla Jaquez, the wife of one of the missing men, posted a map on Facebook showing the rescue route she believes the men took in their boat before they went missing on Monday