Philadelphia man rescued by Blaine Gabbert recalls helicopter crash
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A Philadelphia man who was on a helicopter that crashed off the coast of Tampa, Florida, spoke with CBS Philadelphia about the terrifying moments. He's alive because of Blaine Gabbert, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' backup quarterback.
A birthday present gone terribly wrong.
Late last week, Hunter Hupp, who lives in Philadelphia, was vacationing in Flordia with his parents.
With his birthday coming up, his mother arranged for a 60-minute helicopter tour, but as the flight was coming to an end, the unthinkable happened.
"We hear this really loud bang," Hupp said.
Despite the pilot's best efforts, he couldn't reach land and the chopper gently lands on water. It then quickly began to sink.
Hupp's dad got out, which allowed for more water to rush into the helicopter's cabin. His mother too got out, which left the pilot and Hupp in the sinking chopper.
"There's that last little lip of air at the very top and I knew that that was my last breath until I surfaced that I was going to be able to take," he said.
The last Hupp saw the pilot was stuck on something as he tried to escape. But now, Hupp faced most people's worst fears.
"I just kind of contemplated my life at that point," Hupp said. "They always say drowning is always a really terrible way to go out."
Hupp said he had to decide if he was going to struggle to get out, fighting for his life with fear and adrenaline, or if he'd relax and think about the good life he had led.
Hupp relaxed and he thinks it helped him, holding his breath for what felt like a minute -- his maximum capacity. He freed himself, saw daylight above and kicked and reach the surface.
"The guttural, instinctual noise of my parents' sigh of relief when my head popped up, I will never forget," he said.
That's where Gabbert and his brothers sightseeing on jet skies enter the story.
"They looked like they were in distress," Gabbert said. "We raced over there. The youngest kid had just came up and said he was pinned in there. I asked if anybody else was trapped and then I called 911. It was just my brothers and I out having fun. The credit goes to these guys because if they weren't there in a nick of time, it could have turned bad."
Hupp didn't realize who Gabbert was until the day after the rescue. Someone from the Bucs' organization invited him and his parents to last weekend's game against the Carolina Panthers, which they attended.
No one was injured in the ordeal.
The investigation into exactly what happened on that chopper got underway on Wednesday.
