Saturday August, 13 2016 @ 12:13

Nature: Watercraft In Distress

Location: Pump Station 34107 Indian Cabin Creek Millsboro, DE 19966

On Saturday afternoon, August 13th, the Indian River Volunteer Fire Company was alerted for a watercraft in distress located within the tributaries surrounding Pot Nets Bayside off of Indian Cabin Creek Road. It was apparently reported by Pot Nets Security.

Emergency response units from Indian River included Tanker 80; Utility 80-11; Utility 80-08 with 80 Marine 1 from the Oak Orchard facility as well as Brush #80-0 with 80 Marine 2 from the Long Neck facility. Tanker 80 and Utility 80-11 were already in the Long Neck area for a pre-arranged fire prevention and fire truck activity associated with the Annual Picnic of Pot Nets Coveside, Seaside, and Dockside.

Emergency response assignments included incident evaluation for potential mitigation assistance.  There was no medical emergency or persons in distress. 80 Marine Unit were transversing towards Massey’s Landing for launching and Tanker 80 went directly to the incident location.

It was identified that personal canoe with three occupants progressed into extremely shallow water in a back tributary encountered an extremely muddy situation.  A parental relative utilized a boogie-board too transverse the muddy shoal to offer assistance. Another parental relative attempted to wade and walk via the knee-deep mud with not any success.

Based upon the lack of an emergency situation, inability for any marine unit access, no water depth (extremely low tide), and that efforts to self-extricate were progressing as well as parental communication all responding emergency apparatus were cancelled. Also, there was not any need for emergency medical services pursuant to the parental discussion. An overseer was assigned to monitor the situation for the duration.

Access via additional boogie-boards were successful and efforts to push the canoe to more water depth was also successful.