AUSTIN, TEXAS, March 9, 2005
Sucked Under Dam, Texas Man OK
His Companion In Boat Was Pulled To Safety
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Play CBS Video Video Boat Sucked Under Dam See a wild water rescue in Austin, Texas, where a boat carrying two people was literally sucked beneath a dam. Jeff Eliasoph of Austin station KEYE reports.
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This sequence of four photos from video provided by the Lower Colorado River Authority shows Monica Barnes clinging to a boat on Austin's Tom Miller Dam March 7, 2005. (AP/LCRA/Austin American-Statesman)
Dirk Hoekstra of Austin and his companion were boating on Lake Austin Monday when the engine quit on his 16-foot fiberglass craft and the boat was swept up against the 60-foot dam.
The woman, Monica Barnes, was pulled unhurt to safety as she clung to the boat. Hoekstra, 34, was swept out of the boat, through the dam’s floodgates and down a 60-foot waterfall to Town Lake. His clothes ripped off during the tumble, Hoekstra swam to shore and summoned help from a nearby apartment. He suffered only scrapes and bruises.
He told KEYE-TV, the CBS affiliate in Austin, that he thought be was going to die. "It was like a horror movie," said Hoekstra.
“I’m pretty beat up, but I’m here," he told the Austin American-Statesman the following day.
Video cameras were rolling as the boat was sucked under floodgates and completely destroyed. The TV report quoted officials as saying that all that was found of the boat was a 14-by-20-inch piece of wood.
Patrons and staff on the outdoor deck of the Hula Hut restaurant saw events unfold and they summoned emergency squads who rescued Barnes.
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