A Coast Guard boat crew came to the aid of a fisherman who got one of his legs tangled in crab pot gear on Monday.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Brent Flanick says they initially got a call from a Juneau resident saying that their friend was overdue.
The unidentified boater, believed to be roughly 45 years old, reportedly went out in a canoe between Portland Island and Point Louisa. When the canoe capsized Monday evening, Flanick says they got calls about a man screaming or yelling on the water.
The man hung on to the overturned canoe until the crew of a Coast Guard 25-foot small response boat could arrive on the scene and cut him loose. A line from the crab pot was wrapped around the man’s leg and was possibly pulling him underwater.
Flanick says the man was wearing a life jacket. But he suffered from hypothermia after being in the water for about an hour. The Coast Guard boat crew transported the man back to Auke Bay just before eleven o’clock Monday night. An ambulance crew took him to Bartlett Regional Hospital for potential evaluation and any treatment.
Flanick says the Coast Guard boat crew then returned to the scene to retrieve the man’s canoe for safekeeping at the Liberty dock.
