Lost boaters rescued

Three men spent a chilly night stranded on a sand bar near Bigfork March 18-19 before rescuers found them.

Rick Marsengill and two friends visiting from Bozeman launched Marsengill’s newly acquired fiberglass motorboat from Somers on Sunday afternoon, March 18, according to Cpl. Jordan White, coordinator of Flathead County Search and Rescue. The men called 911 at 12:12 a.m. March 19, complaining they were cold after several hours trying to push the boat off a sandbar they believed was near Somers, White said.

They turned out to be on the east side of the mouth of the Flathead River, about two miles west of Bigfork and nearly five miles east of Somers, he said.

“They had no lights,” White said. “They had nothing. They had no GPS, no idea where they were.”

White and Lt. Bob Provo responded to the men’s call immediately by launching a sheriff’s department-owned boat from Somers to search for them. Patrol officers in cars also aided in the search. White and Provo used their boat’s searchlight and fired flares into the sky, but the lost boaters didn’t see them. They did see lights flashing from a patrol car in Lakeside, however.

“They were continuously calling 911, saying how cold they were,” White said.

Meanwhile, Jordan and Provo were having their own problems. The north end of Flathead Lake is very shallow in the wintertime, between one and two feet deep, and the bottom is mostly sand, White said. He and Provo kept getting their boat stuck in the shallower spots during the night as they worked their way toward Lakeside and then over to Bigfork.

The ALERT helicopter located the missing trio at 5:15 a.m., White said. A Search and Rescue boat hauled them to shore. Bigfork Ambulance took one man to Kalispell Regional Medical Center, where he was treated for exposure and released. The men looked to be in their 40s, White said.

“They didn’t appear to be under the influence,” he said, but he suspects alcohol may have been involved in the incident.

Marsengill could not be reached for comment.

The three men will not be charged for Search and Rescue services.

“They’ll get to pay a hospital bill,” White said. “You pay for Search and Rescue in your taxes.”

Bigfork Ambulance also charges for its services.