A day on the lake turned into a scary situation for four women in Austin, Texas, when their boat came dangerously close to going over a dam. They were visiting Lady Bird Lake on an electric boat and were distracted, so they didn’t see two marked buoys telling them to turn around, according to officer Bradley Smith, with the Austin Police Department’s lake patrol unit.
Soon they were at the edge of Longhorn Dam, where the spillway was open because of recent rains. Their electric boat was teetering over the edge, but its motor wasn’t strong enough to pull them back. “By the time they realized they were almost at the dam, they tried to turn around to avoid it,” Smith explains, “but the suction was too powerful and pulled them against the dam.” The women called the boat service company, which couldn’t pull them away, but was able to tie off the boat to keep it from going farther.
The Austin Fire Department lowered life jackets down to the passengers from a helicopter, but two lake patrol boats manned by Austin Police were able to pull the rental boat to safety and no one on board was hurt. “This would have been very tragic had they gone over the dam," explains Austin Police Department Assistant Chief Scott Perry." It's a very high dam and there would have been probably severe injuries if not loss of life due to that.”
Source:People
[Courtesy of Dr. Dave’s Ultimate Prep]