Eleven Chinese fisherman, four badly burned or dying, floated in a life raft near their boat that had exploded into flames in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Ocean.

The smoke plume caught the eye of a helicopter pilot scouting for tuna for a fishing vessel skippered by Point Loma native Capt. Gregory Virissimo.

Over the next several excruciating hours, the captain and his crew raced to the rescue, hauled the men onto their own vessel and coordinated with the U.S. Coast Guard and Air Force to fly in doctors and medical supplies.

Virissimo was honored for his heroic, lifesaving actions Thursday at the U.S. Coast Guard Station in San Diego.

“I don’t think I’m a hero, Virissimo said during the award ceremony. “I just think life is precious. … If you can rescue somebody, that’s what you do.

An audience with his family and more than 100 Coast Guard members thundered their applause as Coast Guard Capt. Jonathan Spanner, San Diego sector commander, pinned a Meritorious Public Service medal onto Virissimo’s shirt. It is the second-highest award the Coast Guard gives to civilians.

Virissimo was raised in a family of fishermen and one of his four brothers, also a fisherman, has won two lifesaving awards. Virissimo, a tuna boat captain for 34 years, recounted how the rescue he directed unfolded.

He and his crew of 26 on the 290-foot Venezuelan fishing vessel Falcon had fair weather and a fair catch after six or seven weeks at sea. They were more than 1,500 miles east of Hawaii “the middle of nowhere, Virissimo said. On May 2 his helicopter scout reported smoke at a distance. Radar showed a fishing boat dead in the water.

“I said, ‘There’s something wrong, start heading toward him,’ Virissimo said. “We turned toward our target and sped up our engines at max speed.

The helicopter pilot circled as close as he dared to the flaming fishing boat and counted 11 men, some obviously injured, crammed onto a life raft. Virissimo radioed the Coast Guard in Honolulu and began coordinating the rescue.

He used a small boat to bring the Chinese fisherman aboard as their company ship, the Fu Yuan 065, continued to explode and sink. The helicopter pilot circled for hours, searching for any other survivors in the water.

Virissimo later learned that the Fu Yuan’s engine had exploded directly below most of the crew, who were in their quarters. Six died onboard. Men who didn’t realized their feet were severely burned helped others up the narrow hatch. They grabbed the boat’s briefcase of records and crew passports and shoved away in the raft.

Virissimo took cellphone photos of the most severe injuries and emailed them to the Coast Guard for medical assessment.

“I told my guys to make them as comfortable as you can, Virissimo said. “I was in desperate need of morphine (for them). We didn’t have it.

Communications with the Chinese was limited to gestures and their knowledge of the words “Thank you, Virissimo said. At one point an interpreter on the marine radio was able to get information from the men who weren’t hurt.

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