|
| Family Boat in Flames |
 Damon Winney was talking on the phone when he looked out his backyard window and noticed a 17-foot Bombardier jetboat engulfed in flames on Lake St. Clair. Dark plumes of smoke billowed from the vessel, reaching more than 15 feet into the air.
Winney and Chris Kassa jumped into their kayaks and headed toward the scene. They saw a mother and father lowering two children into the icy water.
"The mother handed me a small child," Winney told the Windsor Star. "They both had lifejackets on, six or seven years old. They looked like they were in shock." Kassa rescued the parents in his kayak.
He noted that the water wasn't deep - about chest-high - but the unanchored boat, with its 60-gallon fuel tank, was drifting menacingly toward rocks.
This was the family's first excursion of the season aboard their jetboat, which has been declared a $25,000 to $35,000 write-off by the Windsor Fire and Rescue District. The family had only gotten about 600 meters offshore before the Bombardier began to smoke.
Firefighters had difficulty putting out the flames. The force of the water kept pushing the boat out of range, and a salvage vessel had to be recruited to pump water on the fire.
The conflagration was extinguished, and the lucky family was uninjured.
To see previous Spotlights in our new, easier to read Spotlight archive, click here, or discuss this story on our new message boards.
|
|
|
|
 "Click for larger image")