Plastic Boating Incident

HOQUIAM, Wash. - One Hoquiam reisdent learned Wednesday that while an 8 foot plastic boat might not make a good sled, it makes a decent rescue platform when you break your leg.

Police Chief Jeff Myers tells us just before 4 this afternoon, Hoquiam officers responded to assist Hoquiam Fire with a reported sledding accident in the city cemetery. Myers tells us when two friends and the 21 year old victim decided to “sled” in an eight-foot plastic boat down the snowy cemetery hillside, the boat apparently picked-up speed and carried the boat through the trees and at a sharp angle into a gully beyond.  It appeared the victim suffered a broken leg when the boat landed at the base of the gully. Myers said it appears alcohol was involved.

Officers, paramedics and friends at the scene assisted in extracting the victim, and his boat, out of the gully and back up the hill (the ambulance could not make it down the steep access road) using ropes and a SUV patrol vehicle.  The rescue platform was the same boat which got the victim into trouble in the first place.  The boat was an excellent way to pull the victim out of the gully and up the hill. Once at the top of the hill, he was transferred into the awaiting ambulance and transported to Community Hospital by Hoquiam Fire.

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