Yea, we are all required to wear PFD's when we are outside at ALL times. No tug or crew boat will allow anyone on board without one on. Once your foot leave land, they are required... period! They even carry them in the crew vans for the crews to wear getting on, they get on the boat, give them to the off going crew and they put them on to go to shore..

The guy who fell in is a old river rat who grew up on the bayous in Louisiana and in the gulf of Mexico. Said when he was 10 years old, they use to go out in the gulf with his Dad and jump overboard while his Dad went trawling for shrimp and sometimes his Dad would go so far away they (he and his brother) couldn't even see him. They would swim for hours and when his Dad was done for the day, he would come back and get them.. Of coarse he said, that was before they knew there were sharks out there! So, him falling in was really no big deal to him other than he had never actually fell in before and him loosing his cigar.