3 First Responders Rescued After Boat Capsizes In Cherokee County

Three Grand River Dam Authority emergency personnel are safe after they were rescued from a creek in Cherokee County after their boat capsized while they were attempting to rescue people stuck inside two vehicles in high water.

GRDA was responding to a call of two vehicles stuck in water near Spring Creek near Oaks when they went into the water, GRDA spokesman Justin Alberty said. 

Members of the Oaks Fire Department rescued the five people stuck in the vehicles and the three GRDA personnel. 

Alberty said there were five people in the two vehicles that the GRDA emergency responders were trying to rescue in their swift water rescue boat. 

During the rescue, the boat got hung up in some limbs, overturned and the three rescuers fell into the water. 

The three first responders were able to hold onto tree limbs to stay above water as rescuers worked to pull them from the water. 

4/29/2017 Related Story: Evacuations, Water Rescues Underway In Cherokee County