By Jorge Valencia
The Roanoke Times
ROANOKE, Va. — Two men whose boat capsized in the rain-swollen Roanoke River were found safe Monday night after a dozen Roanoke Fire-EMS rescuers searched the murky water. As rescue workers prepared to launch rafts for a more intensive search, the lost boaters arrived on land in a purple minivan, unhurt. “The main thing here is that they’re OK. We’re not pulling two bodies out of the river,” said David Hoback, a Roanoke Fire-EMS chief.
The boaters thrashed in the murky water in the area of 13th Street, near the Jamestown Apartments in Southeast Roanoke, for about 20 seconds after capsizing, two witnesses told Fire-EMS personnel. Then the men sank and didn’t reappear, Hoback said, citing the witness accounts.
Rescue workers found the capsized boat, a small Aqua Cat catamaran, shortly after 4:45 p.m. lodged against a tree trunk, Roanoke Fire-EMS said. About a dozen rescue workers searched both sides of the riverbank without success. One of the witnesses, Dolores Poindexter, said she and a co-worker were walking upriver on the greenway and saw the boat flip, tossing the two men into the water. One man scampered onto the hull, she said, and the other grabbed onto the side.
The women asked the men if they wanted help, but they said they would try to make it to shore. Suddenly, the boat flipped again and the men disappeared, Poindexter said. She called 911. “They looked scared” before submerging, Poindexter said. The boaters — David Pryor, 25, and his brother Daniel Pryor, 18 — reappeared wearing dry, hooded sweatshirts shortly before 7 p.m., and were interviewed by Department of Game and Inland Fisheries officials. They were charged for not wearing life vests in the river, said Conservation Police Officer Eric Plaster. They were asked to have the boat towed and taken to police for inspection.
David Pryor said he and his brother had climbed the tree where the boat got stuck, and sat on the bank considering whether they would pull the boat. They walked to their house near Ninth Street Southeast, changed and ate turkey sandwiches before returning to the river, where they learned that rescue teams were looking for them. “It wasn’t our intention at all for all of this to happen,” David Pryor said. “I’m really sorry, but thank you for looking for us.”
Copyright 2010 The Roanoke Times