EVERETT, Wash. — The search for a man that fell out of a small boat near Jetty Island on Monday afternoon has been suspended and is now being called a recovery effort, the city of Everett said.
Fire and police personnel responded to the area at about 1:20 p.m. after receiving a report of someone in the water. A man who was in the water was taken to a hospital.
"He was in the start of hypothermia," said Rick Robinson with the Everett Fire Department. "He was very cold. We got him into the back of a medic unit and up to the hospital."
Crews searched for the other, who was reported seen off the jetty, for about two hours.
Chopper 7 video showed a Coast Guard helicopter in the area as searchers look for one of two people who may have fallen from a skiff.
According to KIRO 7 Eyewitness News partner the Herald, witnesses who had been in a boat said they saw a man in his 50s on the north end of the jetty waving his arms and screaming for help. The man was blue, cold and exhausted when they rescued him, the couple said. The victim told them his friend was missing.
"As we rounded the north point of Jetty Island, we spotted somebody in the water shouting, waving his arms," said Brent Schilling, who said he was in a boat at the time. "He was exhausted. He had no strength. He could barely hold on to the side of the boat."
Schilling said the man said he was in a 12-foot boat with another man when the boat sank.
Police said they didn't know if the pair had life jackets or why they were on the water.
Boaters faced two-foot waves Monday, and chilly 50-degree waters.
"With the river runoff, it's chilly out there," said Sarah Schilling. "The warm water brings people out and they want to get in the water, but that hypothermia will set in."
Crews planned to use side-scan sonar, which is used to locate small objects underwater, to find the missing man.
KIRO
