(Orleans)– Monday’s severe weather resulted in a close call on Big Spirit Lake.
A sailboat with one person on board capsized as a storm packing 70-mile-per-hour wind slammed across the lake out of Minnesota.
The person who was on board the sailboat was plucked out of the water by a larger boat that happened to be in the area at the time.
Harold McDermott, a retired Sioux City school administrator, witnessed the whole thing from his cottage. He tells KUOO news the person on the sailboat would have drowned if it hadn’t been the heroics of the people on the larger boat.
McDermott estimates the person who was thrown off the sailboat clung to it a good 15 minutes before being rescued.
He says the large waves, which he estimated to be atleast three feet high, washed both the sail boat and the larger boat to the south shore of the lake near the Spillway. Emergency crews stood by on the scene to make sure everyone was okay.
The incident took place around 4:30 p.m.
