This is one of those stories that takes on a different hue because it is not just a national in scope, but also local -- after all Galveston is just a few miles down the road from where I type this post.

And so it is with sadness and admiration that I note the passing of Roger Stone, who saved two fellow sailors at the cost of his own life on a boat owned by Texas A&M at Galveston.

A college student who survived a boat sinking with four others said Monday that a safety officer who died on their boat was a hero for staying behind and pushing him out.

Steven Guy, a Texas A&M University sailor, said Roger Stone saved him and another sailor by helping them to safety.

"He is my hero," Guy said. "He saved me. If it wasn't for him, I would not be here."

The group never saw Stone after he pushed the two men out of a hatch in the boat, the mariners said. Stone, the boat's second safety officer, was found dead by the Coast Guard on Sunday afternoon.

The two men said they spent a day in open water after their vessel sank in the Gulf of Mexico.

The survivors -- four university students and a safety officer -- told the Coast Guard they were forced off their sailboat after it took on water and capsized early Saturday.

The five survivors were found and airlifted to land around 2 a.m. Sunday, the Coast Guard said.

Stone sacrificed himself so that the other sailors, students from the university, might live. But on a day to day basis, his job was to safeguard those others. By all accounts he did it well -- and in the end, without regard for his own life. May he rest in peace.