NEWPORT, Ore. - Fishermen rescued off the Oregon coast by a helicopter dispatched out of a Coast Guard base that's slated to close say the $6 million that would be saved is not worth the lives of fishermen.

Kelly Madden is the skipper of the fishing vessel Blazer, which sank Saturday about 30 miles off the coast. He said Monday from Newport, Oregon, that despite donning survival suits and getting into a life raft, he and his crew were feeling the cold when the helicopter arrived within 20 minutes of their mayday call. He says the crew members might have been going into hypothermia by the time a helicopter from another base farther away could arrive.

"You spend $10 million a day on a war and you can't come up with $6 million a year to run a helicopter facility that saves lives," said Madden, who lives in Sarasota, Florida. "It doesn't make sense to me."

Deckhand Justin Haggart of Huntington Beach, California, said he started feeling the cold about the same time the helicopter arrived.

Read the full story at KGW>>

Want to read more about the Newport helicopter service? Click here...