3 Rescued, One Missing After Boat Overturns In Fayette Co.
HENRY CLAY TOWNSHIP (KDKA) -- One person is missing and two others were hospitalized after a boating accident Saturday afternoon on a lake in Fayette County.
Brad Kester and Patrick Coll, both from Munhall, say they were right there when the boat, which was carrying four people, overturned on the Youghiogheny Lake.
"We're like, 'Oh, check that out, that boat's flying by,'" said Kester. "Soon as he turned hard left, the boat rolled instantly, probably 15 feet off the water. It just started rolling."
Kester began throwing life jackets into the water, which he said was filled with gasoline and debris.
He and others in their group jumped into the water to pull two teenage boys and one boy's mother from the lake.
While some of the group took the victims to shore, Coll stayed near the sinking boat to try to find a boater who is still unaccounted for. The female victim said it was her brother: a 50-year-old man from Cumberland, Md.
"The lady and the two boys were floating in the water, they were breathing and everything," Kester said. "I asked the mother of the one boy, 'Is there anybody else on this boat?' and she said yeah her brother."
Coll, who's been a volunteer firefighter in Munhall for 19 years, kept diving down into the wreckage looking for the man but never found him.
Two of the victims pulled from the water were flown to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, W. Va.
Numerous fire departments and dive teams, including one from Greensburg, used sonar to search the water for the missing man late into the night.
Scott Grahn, from the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, said late Saturday that the mission has turned from a rescue operation to a recovery.
Teams will be back out first thing Sunday morning to resume the search.
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