Man In Critical Condition After Boating Accident
Posted: November 12, 2009 at 4:07 a.m.
A Fayetteville man clung to life Wednesday evening after a fishing trip went badly awry.
Tony Matthews was plucked from the west fork of the White River about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday after being underwater for 30 minutes. Paramedics managed to restart Matthews’ heart while en route to Washington Regional Medical Center, said Dave Johnson, a captain with Central EMS.
“I’ve never in 20 years seen somebody revived after that long underwater,” Johnson said.
“The cold river water may have actually helped him because it shut his systems down. In the middle of the summer, he wouldn’t have had a chance.”
Matthews was still breathing on a respirator when paramedics turned him over to emergency room personnel, Johnson said.
“As for his long-term prognosis, I couldn’t guess,” he said.
Matthews remained in critical condition Wednesday evening, a nursing supervisor said.
The incident began when Matthews, Arnold Starks and Steve Crawford decided to try fishing from a boat instead of the bank at a popular fishing hole at the end of Pump Station Road in far southeast Fayetteville, Crawford said.
The 10-foot flat-bottom boat swamped with all three men aboard, but they made it back to shore, Crawford said. After dumping water from the boat, Matthews took it back out in the river to retrieve a cooler and two paddles that had fl oated away.
“He reached for something and the boat went over again,” Crawford said. “We thought he was going to make it to the bank, but then he just went under.”
Matthews “apparently couldn’t swim very well,” and neither could either of his companions, Crawford said.
Ten fi refighters trained in water rescue hit the water within minutes of the 911 call, free-diving and using an infl atable boat to search for Matthews in the 40-foot-wide channel. One of the divers located Matthews almost exactly half an hour after he submerged, and he was rushed to a waiting ambulance.
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