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| Teens Defy Death |
 For 40 minutes, two Naples, Florida teens sat in the hull of their yacht as it turned into a blazing inferno. Miami Beach firefighters desperately hammered and sawed at the hull to create a hole the teens could fit through. "I would have bit through that boat if that's what it would have taken," Elloy Dominguez, one of the rescuers, told the Miami Herald. "I couldn't have lived with myself if those people had died."
Christine Desanzo and Norman Scherner, a couple from Naples, and their daughter and four of her friends set out on the ship Grand Larceny for the Bahamas for Spring Break. They made it to Miami Beach Marina and docked there overnight.
Around 5 a.m., a fire broke out on Grand Larceny and spread to the neighboring The Vera D. As most of the occupants of both boats ran for safety, a witness dialed 911.
After investigating popping noises, captain of The Vera D Sam Griffith evacuated his ship. "We got out by the skin of our teeth," Alfred Shotwell, a passenger on The Vera D, told the Miami Herald.
As people ran for safety, someone yelled that the teens were still on Grand Larceny.
"The flames were about 45 feet high," Ian Veltri told the Miami Herald. "It was heartbreaking. Everyone thought the kids were dead."
Within five minutes of the 911 call, Miami Beach Rescue arrived but could not get to the teens, a boy and a girl, who remained trapped.
Dominguez and his friend Matthew Tambor collected as many fire extinguishers as they could and got their friend's boat, Bouncer's Dusky. The friends loaded three firefighters on board and maneuvered to where the teens were trapped. "We were just handing them [the firefighters] chain saws, any tools we had," Dominguez said.
A small hole was made in the hull and breathing equipment was passed to the teen as well as a hose to keep flames at bay.
For the next 40 minutes, the firefighters tried to enlarge the holes.
"We saw these two people peeping out of the portholes," Dominguez said. "And we were drilling and it was like, 'Crap, it's going down.' The kids were suffocating. And then the flames came into the room behind them."
"The look in their eyes..." Dominguez trailed off.
Then, after 40 minutes, the teens were able to wriggle through the hole. "Those guys made it out just in time," Fhief Javier Otero of the Miami Beach Fire Rescue told the Miami Herald. As for Dominguez and Tambor, "We could not have done it without them," Otero said.
The teens were treated at Mount Sinai Hospital for smoke inhalation and released. No cause of the fire is yet known. Both vessels were destroyed.
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