Five teenagers were pulled from the ice cold Tenn-Tom waterway around midnight Saturday night after rescue crews scrambled to find the young men clinging to a nearly submerged Jon boat in an inlet just North of Nashville Ferry Landing.
Around 10:26pm, E-911 dispatched Lowndes County Sheriff’s Deputies and District 3 Volunteers to the Tenn-Tombigbee Waterway south of Columbus after a call came in from a young man who was clinging to a tree branch, and had said their boat was taking on water in the Arkansas Slew area of the river, and that his four friends were all in the frigid water.
The airwaves filled with chatter as emergency responders tried to narrow down exactly where the young men were located. Deputies Toby Rickert, Eric Granderson, Mary Huggins, Kevin Brown and Chad Waltman raced to the southern Edge of Lowndes County, constantly communicating with E-911 and District 3 volunteers to try and devise a rescue plan. Several suggestions were made of locals who may have boats that could be launched quickly to assist in the rescue, either with a watercraft- or directions. [Arkansas Slew is not necessarily the most common name for the area, many skippers refer to the spot as Hairston Bend. I was more than impressed by the knowledge of the area exhibited over the airwaves that night. I can assume every owner f every parcel of land on the East bank of the river probably received a call in the frantic first 30 minutes. –CK]
