Emergency responders in Austin, Texas pulled off a daring rescue Thursday when they saved a boat carrying four women that was seconds away from tipping over a treacherous dam.
Austin-Travis County EMS Captain Darren Noak tells PEOPLE they received several frantic 911 calls from onlookers late Thursday afternoon reporting that a boat in Lady Bird Lake, which houses Austin’s Longhorn Dam, was “up against the dam” with multiple people on board.
ATCEMS/ TWITTER
The turquoise, electric rental boat had drifted too close to the dam and became “highly centered” on the spillway, which was open due to recent rains in Austin, Noak says. The small boat did not have enough power to reverse. Another small boat from the rental company tried to help, but it also wasn’t strong enough to tow the boat away from the dam.
Austin-Travis County EMS, Austin Fire Department and the Austin Police Department immediately responded to the boat in distress.
The Austin Fire Department lowered four life jackets to the boat’s passengers as the responding officers quickly plotted a rescue plan and prepared for a potential rescue downstream of the dam should the boat have gone over.
Austin-Travis County EMSlive-tweetedthe dangerous rescue, which attracted hundreds of retweets and anxious commentary from users watching the incident unfold in real-time.
“Scary!” one user wrote. Another user called photos of the boat perched on the dam’s edge “nightmare fuel.”
Noak says this is the first boating incident he’s heard of near Longhorn Dam.
“I’ve worked here 25 years and I am not aware of a boat ever being stranded near this dam,” Noak says. “We have made multiple water rescues near the dam, but never a boat.”
The EMS captain also encouraged boaters to triple-check weather and dam conditions before heading to Lady Bird Lake.
“Everyone should steer clear of the dam, especially if the gates are open,” he adds.
source: people.com
