Boating Safety

River Rescue: What You Must Know.

 

Officer Saves Boaters' Lives in Tennessee River

3/3/25 – Knoxville, TN

Accidents of the week, Boat Fire, Grounding, USCG, Drownings, Rescue Efforts

Officer Mike Raleigh of the TWRA assisted two boaters stuck in a ‘wall of water’ by a low-head dam.

Two Tennessee boaters, Tony Copeland and Mark Hudspeth, will never forget their day on the Little River in the state’s Blount County.

The two friends decided to go fishing when they realized they were getting a little too close to the Rockford Dam. “We were dead in the water. We were sitting there staring at a wall of water,” Copeland said. The friends tried everything to get away from the dam, but more water started filling their boat. They called for help and started praying for someone to come save them.

The person who came was Officer Mike Raleigh of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA). “Once I came up on scene and saw the boat on the dam and two guys in the boat, I just slowed down and tried to do the best I could. It’s not something were really trained in, swift water rescue,” Raleigh said.

Boaters Stuck in Dam’s Recirculation Current

Copeland and Hudspeth were unable to get their boat out of the dam because the boat lost power and the motor wouldn’t crank. Raleigh did what he could to get the men away from the dangerous low-head dam.

“You have a boat like these guys the other day that gets too close to that current, that current starts grabbing them and pulls them into the dam,” Officer Raleigh said. He was able to get the men’s boat away from the dam and get them to a safe location.

 

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