Nick Schuyler, the lone survivor of the tragic boating accident in early March that claimed the lives of three friends, including former Lions defensive end Corey Smith, sat down with HBO's "Real Sports" for an interview that will air Tuesday night at 10 p.m.
It's a powerful and heart-wrenching retelling of a 46-hour ordeal that culminated in Schuyler's unlikely rescue by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Schuyler believes he survived only because he'd gotten seasick on the fishing trip, some 70 miles off the coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. He'd dressed in pants and a sweatshirt to fight off the chills, while the other three men -- Smith, Will Bleakley and Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper -- were wearing only T-shirts and shorts when Cooper's boat capsized as they tried to lift an anchor with a storm front approaching.
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The four stayed together bobbing in the rough seas for more than 10 hours before Cooper became the first to fall victim to hypothermia and lose consciousness. Schuyler says he held on to Cooper's lifeless body for a few more hours, until Smith, like Cooper before him, became irrational as his condition deteriorated.
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