No One Hurt When Boat Capsizes Near Tarentum

Valley News Dispatch
23 June 2012
By Brian C. Rittmeyer

Nobody was reported hurt when a pleasure craft with four passengers including a baby capsized in the Allegheny River Saturday afternoon.

According to Thomas Crist, a waterways conservation officer with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, the boat was anchored about 1,000 yards downriver from the Tarentum Bridge with two men, a pregnant woman and a one-year-old child on board.

Another boat towing a skier passed too close and at high speed, causing wake that flipped the anchored boat, Crist said. The incident was reported to 911 around 5:15 p.m.

Crist could not say how the passengers got out of the water. They were not immediately identified, and declined to speak with a reporter at the scene.

The woman and child were taken to Allegheny Valley Hospital as a precaution, Crist said.

A Eureka Fire Rescue boat towed the capsized boat back to the Tarentum boat launch at the bridge, where it was hooked to a tow truck and turned right-side up with the help of other boaters.

Crist said authorities will be looking for the other boat, which was described as high-powered and yellow with red flames.

Anyone with information about that craft is asked to contact the commission's Somerset law enforcement office at 814-445-8974.