Nine members of one family werekilled on Thursday after a duck boat capsizedon Missouri’s Table Rock Lake — and officials say the victims range in age from 1 to 70, PEOPLE confirms.
Seventeen people died and several were injured after the Ride the Ducks boat capsized in the Ozarks as a thunderstorm ravaged the water at the popular tourist destination.
The youngest victim was 1 year old and the oldest is 70, a spokeswoman for the Stone County Sheriff’s Office tells PEOPLE. Thirty-one people were on the vessel at the time of the incident.
“Our captain yelled, ‘The boat tipped over! The boat’s in the water.’ Then all of a sudden, the staff on our boat just dropped what they were doing and grabbed life vests,” Behr, 20, recalls. “They went to try to save as many people as they could find.
Behr and his girlfriend, 20-year-old Allison Lester, had just arrived in Springfield, Missouri, from Sioux City, Iowa, on Wednesday and boarded for the Branson boat trip around 7 p.m.
Behr, Lester and two others pulled the woman, who looked to be in her late 30s, from the water. They pulled her onto the boat and Behr says the woman looked to be seven months pregnant.
RELATED ARTICLE: Missouri Duck Boat Company Speaks Out After Tour Boat Capsizes, Killing 17
Behr prepared to perform CPR on the woman, but an EMT official swooped in and took over, ordering Behr and the group away.
“It was surreal and we were at a loss for words,” Lester tells PEOPLE of the moments after they left the scene. “We were sick to our stomachs at what we had witnessed. My feelings were all over the place. These are people on vacation, just like we are.”
Lester says they do not know whether the woman they saved survived the incident.
“We’re blessed that we were able to help the lady out of the water. Just knowing we gave our best shot … we tried and we did care,” Lester says.
source: people.com
