Cruise ship diver a cadet

An Air Force Academy cadet who stayed afloat for more than four hours after diving off a cruise ship to help a companion who fell overboard is doing well and will be back this weekend, the academy said Friday.

Cadet Ernesto Guzman was aboard a Princess Cruises vessel in the Gulf of Mexico when he took the plunge last weekend to rescue a female companion, according to a number of news accounts. The pair were rescued from their accidental late-night swim four hours later.

An academy spokesman said officials from the school had talked to Guzman, a junior, by telephone and confirmed that he and his friend are doing well.

According to an account by News Channel 5 Belize, a television outlet in a Latin American nation where the ship made a port call, Guzman leapt into the Gulf of Mexico sometime early Sunday during the first day of a cruise that left from Galveston, Texas.

The television report said that the woman with Guzman, identified only as a 20-yearold college student, fell as many as nine stories into the water from a stateroom balcony aboard the 951-foot Grand Princess and that Guzman followed.

It’s unclear what caused the woman to fall.

Grand Princess is scheduled to dock in Galveston today. Julie Benson, director of public relations for Princess Cruises, didn’t return a phone call seeking comment.

An Associated Press report said the ship, which carries 2,600 passengers, immediately maneuvered in a bid to rescue the pair and lit up the water with searchlights, but the two were not found in the darkness. Passengers were asked to be silent while crew members listened for cries from the overboard couple.

The two were located by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter, which used its spotlight to guide rescue craft from the cruise ship, the Coast Guard said Friday. Both were fully clothed when rescued.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Thomas Blue at the Coast Guard’s New Orleans headquarters said the service has determined what happened on the ship was an accident and doesn’t require further investigation.

Academy spokesman Meade Warthen said Guzman credited his survival with training he received at the academy.

All cadets are required to take an extensive water survival course, which includes how to leap into the water from a high-dive platform and how to stay afloat by inflating clothing with air.

The rigorous training is designed for pilots who might be forced to ditch an aircraft at sea.

The Belize station reported that Guzman’s companion was trained as a lifeguard.

Guzman and his companion were treated for minor injuries after their rescue, the television station reported, and the woman returned home to Colorado after the ship stopped in Mexico.

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