When a crewman fell overboard off a Chinese container ship Tuesday, the Columbia River Bar Pilots came to the rescue.

The ship, CSCL Quindao, had made it across the Columbia River bar and out into the Pacific with the help of bar pilot Capt. Charles Lane.

The crewman was setting up the pilot ladder on the 852-foot ship when he fell. On the way down, he managed to grab hold of the man rope used by pilots for boarding, which was hanging nearby.

Capt. Lane sent a mayday call to the bar pilot helicopter that was on its way to pick him up from the ship.

He immediately steered the ship into a hard turn to keep the stern and propeller away from the man, who at that point was believed to be in the water.

But helicopter pilot Gene Hill and winch operator Mike Bruhn could see the man hanging on the rope as they neared the vessel.

With winds blowing 15 and 20 knots on 12-foot seas, the Quindao was traveling at 19 knots, or 21 miles an hour, and dragging the crewman alongside it.

“He looked like a dolphin jumping in and out of the water,” said Bruhn. “He must have had incredible strength – or desperation – to have held on.”

The water temperature was about 45 degrees, cold enough to pose a serious threat of hypothermia if the man had lost his grip and fallen in, said bar pilot Capt. Robert Johnson.

Together, Hill and Bruhn maneuvered the helicopter into a position where they could lower a rescue harness to the man, who was dangling underneath an accommodation ladder – a long steel walkway rigged alongside the ship that leads to the pilot ladder.

Bruhn couldn’t see the man because his view was blocked by the ladder, so Hill and the ship’s crew on deck directed him. He tried four times to get the harness in the right spot.

On the fourth try, the crewman was able to get one arm through the rescue harness and let go of the man rope. He was carefully drawn up and placed on the accommodation ladder, where other crewmen could help him to safety.

Capt. Johnson said the whole operation took about seven minutes and involved effective coordination of bar pilot resources and skills in a life-threatening situation.

It’s not the first time the bar pilots have saved a man overboard, he said, but there have been several incidents where crewmen on ships off the mouth of the Columbia River have fallen overboard while rigging pilot ladders and have not survived.

“We are pleased we could be of assistance in avoiding a potentially deadly tragedy,” said bar pilot Capt. Gary Lewin.