The Boston Globe

5 boaters rescued from culvert

Tide exerts pull at span between Hingham, Hull

Firefigher rescues paddlers from culvert

Four kayakers and a firefighter emerged to a cheering crowd after a pair of kayaks got swept into a culvert by a fast-moving tide underneath Route 228 in Hingham yesterday.

By John C. Drake, Globe Staff | September 3, 2007

As the Weir River rose toward high tide yesterday afternoon, several kayakers and other boaters found themselves clinging to a bridge, to each other, and to rescue lines at a treacherous culvert underneath the Route 228 bridge between Hull and Hingham.

During a dramatic 45-minute rescue by Hull and Hingham firefighters, the five boaters and one firefighter were cheered by a gathered crowd as each was pulled to safety, one by one.

Hull firefighter David McNair said the kayakers were swept by a fast-moving current into the culvert and became trapped around 3:30 p.m. yesterday.

Don Ritz, 55, of Hull, said he was rowing his 19 1/2-foot dory up the river with a friend, Meg Cochran, also of Hull, who was paddling in a kayak, when they came across a couple in a tandem kayak yelling that a woman was being sucked under the bridge. By the time he reached the culvert, the couple he'd just come across also was being sucked under the bridge.

He said he managed to get a line from his dory to the woman who had initially been sucked under. Then, the man on the tandem kayak was able to grab the stern of Ritz's dory but swamped the vessel in the process, causing Ritz to become pinned with his boat against the bridge.

"I couldn't move, because I was going to get swept under, too," Ritz said in a telephone interview last night. "The woman had already gotten swept under this thing."

Two firefighters entered the water and held the kayakers in an attempt to prevent them from going further into the culvert, McNair said. One of them, Hull firefighter John King, became trapped with the kayakers, he said.

Ritz said it appeared all the kayakers were doing well at the hospital, despite their harrowing afternoon.

"I row around the waters there, but nobody goes under this thing," said Ritz, who said he went to the hospital with minor scrapes. "You just try to avoid it."

Reached by telephone at the South Shore Hospital emergency room last night, King declined to comment. Asked about his condition, he said, "Well, I'm talking to you. That's all that matters."

Carlton Alan Chambers, a 66-year-old retired call firefighter for the town of Norwell, was driving with his two young children when he came across the rescue.

Chambers said he helped out by holding onto some of the rescue lines used to pull the trapped kayakers to safety. He said he could see how the kayakers may have become caught. He also managed to snap several pictures of the scene, which show the rising level of the tide.

"When I started taking those pictures, we didn't know who was dead and who was alive."

He described a dramatic rescue, in front of a crowd of onlookers - mostly motorists stopped by emergency vehicles on Route 228.

According to Chambers, one man was rescued first, pulled manually by emergency responders reaching over the bridge. The Hull Fire Department lowered a ladder over the side of the bridge, and tied it to a bridge post. A firefighter climbed down the ladder, standing up to his shoulders in the tidal flow, which was rising, Chambers said.

Firefighters then sent life preservers, tied to rescue lines, into the culvert and pulled out the kayakers, one by one. As each person emerged ashen and shaken, the assembled crowd erupted in cheers, Chambers said.

Police officers and firefighters from both Hingham and Hull responded, McNair said.

John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.