Anchorage Daily News

WASILLA -- Two men and a teenage boy are lucky to be alive after a boating accident on the Talkeetna River.

Joseph Merrill, 54, of Palmer, his 14-year-old son, Matthew, and Merrill's cousin, Scott Schumacher, 59, of New Jersey, were out on the river Friday afternoon when they rounded a bend on a rarely used channel in the braided river and hit a log, according to Alaska State Troopers' report.

Schumacher was thrown clear of the boat when it overturned, and was rescued by another boat nearby, the troopers report stated.

Merrill and his son, though, were trapped under the boat's hull and started drifting downstream.

A person in the boat that pulled Schumacher to safety had a cell phone and called 911 about 5:30 p.m.

Troopers then called Steve Mahay for help.

Mahay, 61, of Talkeetna, has been running the river for his Mahay's Riverboat Service for 33 years, and is often tapped for rescues.

"I was at the dock," Mahay said. "They wanted me to wait for EMTs, but I knew the boat was overturned and we had to get there real fast."

So he ordered a second boat from his fleet to stand by and left with his wife, Sharon, in their 24-foot twin-engine jet boat.

When he found the boat, he didn't think anybody would be alive, he said.

FLIPPING THE BOAT

The water is about 36 to 38 degrees and he estimated the Merrills had been under the boat for about 30 minutes.

"Too long," Mahay said.

But as they approached, "We heard somebody screaming."

J.J. Saatzer, the captain of his second boat, had joined him by that time and the two men went to work.

The water was too deep to get help from shore so they attached an anchor line to the stern of Mahay's boat and secured the anchor to the downstream side of capsized boat.

As he was churning up a froth in the river, Mahay worried the line would snap and Joe Merrill and his son Matthew would be lost.

But the plan worked, flipping the boat right-side up.

"Now we got two guys sitting in a boat full of water drifting downstream," he said.

Then the unthinkable happened.

The boat overturned again, trapping the Merrills once more.

LIFEJACKETS SAVED THEM

This time, though, Saatzer, Schumacher and others nearby were able to get to the boat and turn it over by hand.

Mahay had the Merrills back on land five minutes later, he said, and an ambulance took them to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center for treatment of hypothermia. Schumacher was released by emergency personnel at the scene.

"This is a testimony for lifejackets," said Merrill's wife Lisa, in an interview Tuesday.

The jackets kept them up so they could take advantage of air pockets under the boat, she said.

"They were very, very lucky," she said. "I am the grateful one."

She said her husband also suffered scrapes, bruises and cuts from protecting their son, a Colony High freshman, as they drifted.

Mahay said it was one of the hardest rescues he's done on the river.

"It was especially hard because I could talk to them and hear them and knowing I might not be able to help them. If that rope would've broke ..." he said, his voice trailing off.

He also said the trio lucked out because the boat that pulled Schumacher out of the water after he was thrown clear had mistakenly turned into the rarely traveled channel.

That braid isn't used because a huge cottonwood breaches the river where the boat capsized, Mahay said.

"It was divine providence," he said. "I guess it wasn't their day to die."

Find T.C. Mitchell at adn.com/contact/tcmitchell or call 352-6716.

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