(Okoboji)– We’re learning additional details into an incident Wednesday in which two people were taken to the hospital Wednesday after being plucked out of East Lake Okoboji near Loch Nolls.
Chris Yungbluth of Arnolds Park-Okoboji Fire and Rescue says they were called to the scene around 3:13 pm…
“Dispatch was still working with the callers, there was a language barrier between the caller and the dispatcher trying to get the information, so there was a little bit of confusion on location initially, but we were able to quickly locate them with the fire boat, determined that there actually were two patients is what they told us when we arrived, so our responders, with the fire boat, assessed them real quick, determined that they didn’t have anything life threatening immediately going on, so one of our responders jumped into their boat and was able to operate it over to Parks Marina where the remaining first responders had staged and so we were able to get them there and assist them off the boat to the ambulance.”
Yungbluth says it was a case where one person had gotten into the water to swim and became fatigued…
“One gentleman had been in the lake swimming and called out and said hey he was getting tired and so they pulled the boat up closer to him and when they got close enough to him they tried to help him into the boat, weren’t able to do so, so another person in the party jumped into the water and aided him over to the boat to try to get him up into the boat. It was a difficult task and the gentleman was very fatigued, couldn’t help himself at all and so the other gentleman worked pretty hard at getting him in there and actually ended up getting fatigued and injuring himself as well.”
Yungbluth says the incident brings up an important reminder…
The conditions of the two people taken to the hospital weren’t immediately known.
Wednesday was a busy day for Arnolds Park-Okoboji Underwater Search and rescue crews. Last evening they assisted the Spirit Lake Police Department in recovering some evidence for an investigation from the north end of East Lake Okoboji. Yungbluth says they were able to find what they were looking for within about an hour or arriving on the scene.
