A most unusual search is underway in Havre de Grace, just offshore from Tydings Park. A boater, whose arm and leg were amputated five years ago, was swept overboard last weekend and lost both of his prosthetics on the bottom of the channel.
Thomas Zdon, a lifelong boater, had just finished fixing up his 12-foot Sears Gamefisher V-hulled boat, fitting it with a new propellor and shaft. He invited a neighbor to join him Sunday for a boat ride south to Swan Harbor.
Zdon is a bilateral amputee, having lost one of his legs and one of his arms in a motorcycle accident five and a half years ago. That tragic day, another driver fell asleep at the wheel and hit Zdon and his wife of 24 years head-on. He woke up three days later to find out that his wife didn’t survive. Zdon now has a prosthetic fiberglass leg that conforms to his stump and a cutting-edge robotic arm that can, incredibly, work off his brain’s thoughts and move his prosthetic fingers and hand when his brain tells them to move. This myoelectric arm is estimated to cost $400,000.
On Sunday, Zdon and his boating companion were returning to the Havre de Grace Yacht Basin boat ramp when he Zdon shifted his weight just enough to send water in over the side, tip the boat, and sweep them both into the water. “I rolled out like a jelly bean,” he recalls.
Zdon, who wasn’t wearing a life jacket, felt confident he could stay afloat. He swims in a pool at his house every day, he tells us, despite having only one arm and leg.
However, upon falling into the water, his prosthetics began to weigh him down. He estimates the waterlogged arm and leg probably weighed about 20 pounds. His prosthetic leg became detached from his body on its own. He was feeling he might not be able to keep his head above water much longer. “I had to make the decision to reach over and take off my arm.”
By that time, he had been tossed a life vest and a good Samaritan on shore had spotted the capsized vessel to call 911. He and his neighbor were both able to safely get to shore.
Zdon says while he was trying to survive in the water, he didn’t panic. “I don’t have fear of the water,” he tells us. “Some people say, ‘You’re an amputee, what are you even doing on the water?'”
But in boating and in life, Zdon doesn’t let his loss of limbs limit him. “I live by myself, swim in my pool, cut the grass, do the shopping,” he says.
After Zdon was checked out by emergency responders back ashore, he went about finding help to recover his prosthetics from the bottom of the channel. It’s a narrow area, but the water is at least 12 feet deep and the current is swift, says Josh Argentino, owner of boat dealership, service, and salvage company Argentino Marine.
When he got the call about the missing arm and leg, Argentino didn’t quite believe it. “I thought, It sounds like someone is trying to prank us. But he met Zdon and knew he had to help. On Monday afternoon, Argentino and an employee who is a trained diver, took a first look, but the search area wasn’t narrow enough to make much progress.
Argentino tried again on Wednesday evening with his side-scan sonar. Intended for fishing, he didn’t anticipate it would be sensitive enough to locate the arm and leg, which could easily be confused with debris or a tree limb underwater.
By this time, friends of Zdon were spreading the word on social media about the search. Hundreds of people reached out to him, commercial “treasure divers” as he put it, all with good intentions of helping.
With media attention mounting, the Susquehanna Hose Company and Maryland State Police dive teams are poised to take up the search as early as Friday. The Susquehanna Hose Company has a much more powerful side-scan sonar device, and Argentino is optimistic they’ll turn up the prosthetics. “I’d put our chances of finding it around a 60 percent chance,” he says.
It’s possible for Zdon to have the prosthetics replaced, but the cost is daunting, and it would be months before he would receive them. The different components of his arm come from all over the world, from Germany to College Park, Maryland, to Chicago.
For now, Zdon is confined to his wheelchair. He’s overwhelmed by the attention from people wanting to help find his prosthetics, but grateful. “I must have 700 messages,” he tells us.
Zdon still doesn’t fear the water, but he does intend to stick with larger, more stable vessels from now on. And he’s learned his lesson about wearing a PFD rather than simply carrying one on board. “I probably should be wearing at least a ski vest or something.”
