CHARLESTOWN, N.H.-A rescue boat taking an injured woman to an ambulance capsized in a river, trapping her beneath it and drowning her, authorities said.Virginia Yates, 60, of Rockingham, Vt., was being rescued Tuesday afternoon after she slipped and hit her head while stepping onto a dock, said Sgt. Craig Morrocco of the Fish and Game Department.
A rescue crew took Yates onto a new flat-bottomed airboat and strapped her to a backboard. But as the boat headed to a waiting ambulance, it started taking on water and capsized, Morrocco said.
Edgar Emerson said he and Yates were on their way to visit friends when she slipped getting out of his pontoon boat on the Vermont side of the Connecticut River, which runs between both states.
She had cuts and bruises on her head and arms, and Emerson thought she might have broken her ankle, so Yates sat on shore as he boated to find a cell phone and call friends. Others persuaded him to call 911, he said.
“She didn’t want to go in the ambulance; she didn’t want to be rescued,” Emerson told the Rutland Herald.
No rescue crew members were reported injured.
The water was calm and there was no wind or rain, witnesses said.
The boat was pulled out of the water about 9 p.m. The New Hampshire Marine Patrol will investigate, Morrocco said.