In a matter of minutes a relaxing Lake Moultrie boat ride became a test of courage for a Moncks Corner family. 

"Yes, ma'am. I'm on the lake and my boat is taking on water and it's about ready to sink." Susan Matkovich said to the 911 operator. "And the boat's going under pretty fast. It's up to our knees, okay?"

A far cry from how the boat trip began for the Matkovich family of nine on Lake Moultrie.

"(The lake) It was smooth, flat and beautiful. There were some clouds. we thought we were leaving them behind but they were following us," Matkovich said. 

Those clouds were signals of the storm to come for the five adults and four children, ages 10, 8, 7 and 4.

"We needed to find them quickly. There was a lot of lightning in the area and another storm. We needed to find them." Berkeley County Rescue Squad Volunteer, Bill Salisbury said.

"Eventually the waves were coming over too quickly and the boat motor died, so we were in the center of the lake with our sprint cellular phone, thank goodness," Matkovich said.

Grateful, because the phone kept Susan Matkovich in contact with the 911 dispatcher, until the Berkeley County Rescue Squad arrived.

"Are they with you ma'am?" the 911 operator said.

"Yes ma'am," Matkovich responded

"Alright, I'm going to let you go now so you can get on board."

"That was the key that helped us locate them so quickly. The other thing they had, proper life jackets." Salisbury said.

While a cell phone and life jackets helped save the Matkovich family, the one thing they should have also had was a float plan.

"I said well, if the phone had not worked, what would have happened. He said probably no one would have missed us until tomorrow and that would have been tragic," Salisbury explained. 

The Berkeley County Rescue Squad is made up of all volunteers and responds to 2-3 rescues each week.  So far, 3 boat drownings have occurred this year.  In these cases, there were no life jackets on board the boats.

Click here to listen to the complete 911 call

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