Men Rescued From Flood Swollen Chattahoochee River

Two telecommunications employees were plucked from the flood swollen Chattahoochee by airboat after falling into the river at the Highway 166 Bridge, in Douglas County Georgia and being swept away in the 28 knot current and an extensive four hour search.

(PRWEB) July 26, 2005 -- In the wake of Hurricane Dennis, two telecommunications employees, working to free tree limbs that had become entangled in the fiber optic cables that span the Chattahoochee River at Highway 166 Bridge, near Douglasville, Georgia, fell into the river's rushing waters, Monday night July 11, 2005 and were rapidly swept downriver in the darkness, as co-workers watched helplessly from the bridge above.

Rescue units from the Douglas County Fire-Rescue Department and law enforcement officers from the Douglas County Sheriff's Office and Georgia Department of Natural Resources, as well as a helicopter from the Atlanta Police Department responded to the incident.

Following a 2 1/2 hour air and water search, Richard Dunkin, 22 and Jeremy Rice, 28, were located, by the crew of a rescue airboat, perched in an uprooted oak tree drifting with the current down the Chattahoochee River approximately 4 miles from where they were last seen.

The two men were aboard a personal watercraft chainsawing trees that had become entangled in fiber-optic cables, when one of the loose cables, caught by the 28 knot current, began whipping in the air. The whipping cable made contact with the PWC flipping it and catapulting the two men into the water. Dunkin and Rice were quickly carried downriver and out of sight in the darkness.

The PWC had capsized and sunk in the muddy water. Dunkin and Rice drifted with the river's current until they were able to swim to a drifting tree, climb into its limbs and wait to be rescued.

The two men were plucked from the tree by the airboat crew and transported to Douglas County EMS personnel six miles downriver at the Highway 92 Bridge where the Douglas County Fire Department had established a command post.

###