Coast Guard swimmer, 24, says he fought waves and darkness to rescue 16 people from Pacific Ocean

Strapped into a harness, Josh Law was lowered from a US Coast Guard helicopter into the rough Pacific Ocean in the pitch black night, far off the Mexican coast.The force of the helicopter blades pummeled the water, whipping up spray and turbulence.The Coast Guard rescue swimmer couldn’t hear anything over the noise or see anything in the darkness.

Waves of 6 to 8 feet hit him.All he could do was follow the searchlight from the helicopter with the hope it would lead him to the more than two dozen people flung into the cold waters some 140 miles off the coast of Mexico’s Baja peninsula.He would personally rescue 16 of them.“I was experiencing exhaustion at that point,” Law, 24, told The Associated Press in his first interview since the rescue.“We had very little sleep.

But what I was experiencing was nothing compared to what they were at that point … I just had to keep that in mind.”Over the next two hours in the predawn hours of Oct.16, Law was the sole person in the water who would get the people whose boat had capsized to safety.

Eleven others were never found.The Coast Guard called off its search late Sunday.Law described the dramatic operation to save lives along a remote route frequented by migrant smuggling boats.

What the boat was doing out there and where it originated from are part of a federal investigation.It was unclear if the vessel got lost, had engine failure, was swept out to sea or meant to go that far.Only pieces of the boat were found.

All who were rescued are Mexican, the Mexican consulate said.The Coast Guard said US Customs and Border Protection was investigating and interviewing the survivors, but the agency did not respond to multiple inquiries on whether the vessel was a migrant smuggling boat.The mayday call came in around 1 a.m.Someone said their boat was sinking in the middle of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico.Within minutes, the alarm sounded at the US Coast Guard Air Station in Ventura, northwest of...