Three Florida teens fishing on a boat came to the rescue of another crew after the latter’s vessel crashed into a channel marker and ejected three of its six occupants into the river.
Nash Kennedy, 16, Jack Aubuchon and Riley Kirby, both 17, managed to pull the injured people out of the St. Lucie River on Friday, TCPalm.com reported.
A 14-year-old boy sustained severe injuries to his back, and a younger girl and an adult were also injured, according to the news organization. Martin County Rescue crews were sent to the area at 9:43 p.m. EDT, TCPalm.com reported.
“We were probably going 25 (mph),” Kirby, who was driving the boat, told WFLX-TV.
“They came passing way faster than us,” Kennedy told the television station. “I know I saw the channel marker and made sure to avoid it. I was tracking them with my eyes and in my head, I was like, ‘They’re going to hit that,’ and they smacked right into it.”
The three high school friends ferried the injured teen to rescue officials on shore, TCPalm.com reported.
“From his shoulders to his hip, (skin) was just completely gone. You could see his spine, some of his organs, and part of his kidney,” Kennedy told WFLX.
Kennedy used the experience he had seen from his father, a retired firefighter in Miami, and used Kirby’s lifejacket to pack the wound and slow the bleeding, according to the television station.
Mike Kennedy, 51, said he had nearly three decades of experience and was captain of a fireboat there. He told TCPalm.com that he was proud of the way the three boys reacted.
“As a 16-year-old kid to see something like that, it was concerning for me. But, of course, I was proud of them for how they handled it,” Mike Kennedy told the news organization. “I was so impressed with how he was conveying the information to me. He was calm and cool and collected, and I could hear all the chaos in the background.”
“I don’t think we’re heroes. I think we just did the right thing,” Aubuchon told TCPalm.com. “We just did what we were all taught to do.”
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is investigating the crash.
