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Bay Area Crab Fishermen Mourning Loss Of One Of Their Own

HALF MOON BAY (KCBS) – For the second time since February, a crab fishermen out of Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay has died.

Forty-nine-year-old James Allshouse was on a crab boat near Pescadero on Monday dropping pots in the ocean when he got tangled in the ropes, pulled overboard and held underwater for two to three minutes.

Peter Grenell with the San Mateo County Harbor District said fellow fishermen, the Coast Guard and harbor patrol all came to Allshouse's aid.

KCBS' Anna Duckworth Reports:

"We tried to revive him. They brought him to Seton Coastside Medical Center but he was pronounced deceased there," said Grenell.

Rick Hauschel's crew was nearby when Allshouse went over. They helped with CPR. Hauschel said the death is a tragedy and that fishing is a risky job.

"Anytime you have ropes on the deck and the boat is moving forward, pots weigh a hundred pounds, they're in the water, the resistance of that, you get tangled in the rope and you're going off," he said.

Grenell said that it's accidents like this that put commercial fishing on the top of the annual list of most dangerous professions.

"Our harbor patrol, which is the first responder on the San Mateo Coast, gets about 110 distress calls each year," he said.

A recreational crab fisherman who launched from Pillar Point was lost at sea and presumed dead in February.

(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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