The US Coast Guard has called off its search for a 50-year-old Texas man and his teenage son, who disappeared off the Lone Star State coastline while on a shrimping expedition on Saturday.
The man and his 15-year-old son — identified as Benedicto Jaramillo and Angel Alejandro Jaramillo respectively by the family on a fundraising page — cast off aboard the boat “My Possum” from Port Lavaca on the Gulf Coast at about 5 a.m. Saturday and were due back around 10:30 a.m.
Worried over a bout of stormy weather on Saturday morning, relatives reported them missing shortly before 11:30 a.m., sparking a search by a flotilla of Coast Guard and local agencies that was eventually suspended at 7:55 a.m. on Sunday, the Coast Guard said in a press release.
“Whenever we send our rescue crews out, it is with the ardent hope we can bring everyone home safely,” Homar Barrera, for the guard’s Corpus Christi sector, said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, after considering all pertinent factors, we made the difficult decision to suspend our search today,” Barrera added.
The missing pair were shrimpers, with the elder Jaramillo the sole provider for his family, according to the GoFundMe campaign, which asked for donations to offset the costs “for search and vessel recovery.”
The Coast Guard said it searched about 77 miles of the ocean over 21 hours looking for their boat, issuing an urgent broadcast and deploying guard choppers and several boats, including a fire boat.
Calhoun County rescue crews joined the search effort as well as teams from from the Texas Park & Wildlife Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Coast Guard said.
Authorities said the missing dad was a deckhand on “My Possum.”
