Published in The Post-Star, reprinted in the Auburn Citizen. Excerpts used in Associated Press and Detroit Free Press articles.
(See main news story on this event at poststar.com)
10/3/05
LAKE GEORGE -- Anna May Hawley looked dazed and weary as she sat on the steps of a wooden lean-to on the shore of Cramer Point. A tag hung from her right wrist, identifying her as a noncritical patient for triage purposes. "Ann Mae Hawley, 74. Cold," was scrawled on it.
"I don't know where my husband is," Hawley kept saying, clutching a soft, yellow blanket around her slumped, wet shoulders.
Hawley was one of 49 people aboard the Ethan Allen, which capsized Sunday on Lake George. They were senior citizens from Michigan on a one-week tour of New Hampshire, Maine and New York.
The boat cruise was supposed to be just one more fun, relaxing activity on their itinerary -- a one-hour scenic trip along the shoreline of Lake George, followed by dinner and a night at an elegant local hotel called The Georgian in Lake George village.
The Ethan Allen sank quickly after it capsized around 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon, and witnesses say it was completely submerged within 10 or 15 minutes, leaving little time for rescue workers to reach the scene. Passing boaters rescued most of the 29 survivors.
"We were just cruising along, and all of a sudden, the boat tipped. We thought it was kind of like a joke," Hawley said about an hour after the accident. "Next thing I knew, I was in the water under the boat.
"I could see my husband, and I called to him, but he didn't respond. I don't know where he is now."
On the lawn of the house next door, emergency workers were bustling around other stunned senior citizens, asking them if they knew the date and the name of the president. Some of them cried; others said they were still in shock.
"I'm pretty shaken up," said Frances Nelson, 74, a tourist from Whitmore Lake, Mich., who was on the Ethan Allen. "I just can't believe it."
Survivors were comforted and given blankets on the lawn of a lakefront house at Cramer Point, then taken by ambulance to Glens Falls Hospital.
Police and rescue workers hung a plastic tarp beside the house. Within an hour of the accident, at least 14 bodies wrapped in white sheets lay on the other side.
One of the first rescuers to arrive was Brian Hart, an electrical contractor from East Greenbush, who was canoeing nearby with his two children and two nieces when he saw the Ethan Allen capsize. The boat was going north, trying to turn west, when it tipped, Hart said.
Hart immediately called 911, dropped the kids and canoe off at the nearest dock and called his brother, who lives on the shore. The men went out in a motorboat and pulled people from the water.
"I heard all these people screaming; it was like the Titanic. It was awful," he said. "It was hard to pull people out because they were so frantic. Some couldn't swim and grabbed me so hard that it's a good thing I was wearing a life jacket, or I'd be another casualty."
Hart said he pulled six people out of the water, but two had already drowned and one died moments after being rescued.
"One gentleman saw me pull his wife onto my boat after him and die right in front of us. He said it was their 55th wedding anniversary last week, and this was like a honeymoon cruise for them," Hart said, shaking his head and staring out at the lake, where divers were still searching for bodies several hours after the boat sank.
Another couple on the tour survived. Two hours after being rescued from the lake, Jean Peacock, 78, and her husband Lowell, 79, from Gibraltar, Mich., said they were grateful to be alive and together.
"The boat just kept tipping, people all slid to one side, and then suddenly I was underwater," said Peacock. She was temporarily trapped under the overturned boat behind a Plexiglass barrier meant to protect boat passengers from the elements.
"I tried to get out, but the glass was in the way, and I had to swim under it." When she surfaced, she was relieved to see her husband next to her. The couple clung to the boat for about five minutes before someone rescued them.
"I was just thinking, get me out of here. Get me out of here," said Peacock. "And I was so glad that my husband was with me."
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