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cornbread

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Yawl be safe out there.

Town Creek man killed, 1 injured when boat sinks

This is tragic

https://www.decaturdaily.com/stories/Tow ... inks,75082

Town Creek man killed, 1 injured when boat sinks
By Tom Smith
Special to The Daily

ROGERSVILLE — A Lawrence County man died at an Athens hospital and a Morgan County man was injured after the boat they were in sank in the Tennessee River on Wednesday morning.
Brian Keith Hairrell, 30, of Town Creek died at Athens-Limestone Hospital just before noon Wednesday after being flown from the scene of a boating accident, said Lt. Roy Ellis of the Alabama Marine Police.

Kenneth McCoulloch, 29, of Decatur, went to Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital in Florence where he was treated and released, Ellis said.

The two men, both commercial fishermen, tried to swim to the shore in the chilly water of Wheeler Lake after their boat started taking on water.

Officials said the men were about 50 to 60 yards off the shore of the river channel, along Lauderdale 91, which is about six miles south of U.S. 72. The site of the accident is a few hundred feet from where a Giles County man drowned in June 2009 after he and his son jumped off a boat for a quick swim.

‘Swim for it’

“McCoulloch said they were backing the boat up, trying to pull up the net, when a wave came across the (flat-bottom aluminum) boat and it started filling up with water,” Ellis said.
“(McCoulloch) said after the boat started taking on water, Hairrell told him to swim for it and they jumped in,” Ellis said.

George Grabryan, director of the Lauderdale County Emergency Management Agency, said one caller told authorities they saw the men trying to bale water from the boat.

Morris Lentz, deputy chief of the Rogersville Volunteer Fire Department, said the department received a 911 call at 10:42 a.m. reporting two people were in the water calling for help.
He said apparently someone driving by or a construction worker on one of the houses along Lauderdale 91 heard the calls for help and dialed 911.

Officials said emergency crews were at the scene within about 10 minutes after the call came in.
“When we got here, one of the men was crawling up on the shore,” Lentz said. “The other was still in the water.”

Unresponsive
Lentz said both men were wearing life jackets. He said Hairrell was being held afloat by the life jacket. Rescue personnel had to wait until he floated closer to the shore before they were able to retrieve him. Authorities said he was unresponsive.

Lentz said emergency medical personnel immediately started advanced life support measures, which included cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He said CPR was continuing when the AirEvac helicopter left the area.

Lentz said Hairrell was still unresponsive when he was transported to the hospital.
Authorities said Hairrell was pronounced dead at the hospital a short time later.
Lentz said in addition to life jackets, both men had multiple layers of clothing for fishing in cold weather.

Ellis said the water temperature was about 40 degrees.
“You add that with a wind chill in the 20s, and it’s a recipe for hyperthermia,” Grabryan said.
Officials said the men put their boat in the water at a boat launch off Barnett Road, south of Rogersville Industrial Park.

The boat was not visible from the shoreline.

“We’ll have to use sonar to find the boat and recover it,” Ellis said.
The accident remains under investigation by the Alabama Marine Police.
 

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