After Saturday afternoon's Phillies game, catcher Carlos Ruiz learned that something was wrong. Very wrong. Two of Ruiz's best friends and a fishing companion were lost at sea in Panama after going on a fishing expedition. As Jeffrey Eisenband of Yahoo Sports' The Post Game writes, the National Air and Navy Service of Panama set out looking for the lost fishermen. But Carlos Ruiz sprang into action.
Ruiz's friends were lost in the water for 35-40 hours, but they were rescued thanks in part to Ruiz, who hired boats, helicopters and airplanes to search for them. "For almost two days, we were so worried," Ruiz said. "We didn't know if something was going to happen to them. I'm so happy they are OK. Now I can get back to the field."
Ruiz's friend Walter Dubarran was saved thanks to the very boat that Ruiz hired to go search for him. Eisenband describes the story:
Dubarran strapped himself to a buoy and used a broken boogie board to help him float. As he had been in the water for 35-40 hours, he started to become weak as Sunday afternoon neared night. He was dozing off on the buoy.
As Joaquin told Carlos, Dubarran was on the surface enough to trigger the attention of the boat that Ruiz deployed.
"[Joaquin] saw something and said, 'Hey, look! There's something. The captain saw there was something and they went there. They jumped in the water and found them. I told my brother he did a great job."
The crew told Dubarran it was Carlos who funded his rescue, and he got on the phone with Carlos as soon as he got to shore.
Ruiz's friend Jose Mercedes Rodriguez and their friend Blas Pitti were saved National Air and Navy Service of Panama.
Read the whole story here on Yahoo Sports.
