Fishing captain who helped save Tamil refugees passes away

Gus Dalton, a fishing captain who was by most accounts including his own an accidental hero for saving the lives of more than 150 Tamil refugees offsouthern Newfoundland, has died. He was 87.

Dalton made international headlines in August 1986 when a routine fishing trip on a foggy evening took a fateful turn.

Scores of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees may have perished had it not been for Dalton, who came across their open boats about six miles off St. Shott's, on the southern tip of Newfoundland'sAvalon Peninsula.

"Where we picked those people up it's known over the world as the graveyard of the Atlantic, there's been that many lives lost out there," he told CBCNews months after the rescue.

Dalton, who fished out ofAdmiral's Beach, said at the time that he almost couldn't believe what he saw when he first encountered the refugees, who had been dropped in the Atlantic Ocean by a human trafficker.

"I didn't know what to think," he said. "Thirty-odd years fishing on the water, and I [have] never seen the like."

He may have never seen anything like it, but he and his brother knew what to do. They took as many people as they could, about half, on their boat and called in the Canadian Coast Guard to help rescue the rest.

Kept in touch

Those refugees all left Newfoundland for Ontario and Quebec, but Dalton didn't have to wonder what became of them.

Many kept in touch with him over the years, returning most recently to mark the 30thanniversary of their rescue.

Dalton passed away on Tuesday night.

His funeral will be held on Saturday morning in his hometown of Admiral's Beach.