Two men stranded Saturday in a boat on Stafford County’s Aquia Creek were rescued by helicopter.
At 12:33 p.m. on April 4, Stafford County Fire and Rescue received a report of two men in a flat-bottom boat stranded near the Willow Landing Marina, according to Stafford Assistant Fire Chief Mark Doyle.
He said his department dispatched a water-rescue team that made several attempts to reach the victims.
“Due to the very strong easterly winds pushing the water out of the creek, we were unable to access them and we were concerned about them becoming hypothermic, so we felt the safest course of action was to call for a hoist rescue,” Doyle said.
Stafford County officials contacted the U.S. Park Police Aviation Unit and requested a helicopter hoist rescue, said Doyle.
He said helicopter Eagle 1 responded at 1:38 p.m. Each of the victims was rescued separately, and by 2:24 p.m., both men had been hoisted from the boat and transported to shore.
Both victims were evaluated by Stafford County Fire and Rescue paramedics and both were slightly hypothermic, according to Doyle. Both subjects refused transportation to the hospital.
Doyle said that during the rescue the winds reported at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport were 18 mph, gusting to 31 mph.