A family was stranded on a boat, stuck for hours Monday night, as storms rolled in.
Jennifer Forgione, her husband, and teenage son, Lucas, were boating, when they got stranded in a sandbar, just north of Useppa Island.
“It's a really scary thing to get stuck out there with nobody. There were no other boats. There was nothing but us and lightning and water,” described Jennifer.
After they tried to free themselves for hours, the family started to get nervous.
“The whole boat got stuck. We tried to get out. We tried to push it. It wouldn't push, it wouldn't pull, it wouldn't do anything and there's lightning everywhere. To be completely honest, my whole mind, body went absolutely haywire,” Jennifer said.
They called 911 and Useppa Fire responded.
Useppa Fire said there are ways to avoid these incidents in the first place.
“Use your phone, look up a weather app, check the radar, see where thunderstorms are at,” said Useppa fire Chief Marc Mascarelli.
Another thing to keep an eye on, is the tides.
“We have serious tides here that expose a lot of sandbars. And if you don't know the water well or aren't using electronics to navigate you through safe or deep water, you'll run aground. And that's what a lot of these calls we've been running lately is people running aground, not knowing where the sandbar is,” said Mascarelli.
Chief Mascarelli adds it’s important to check your bilge pumps, before getting on the water.
While Jennifer and Lucas made it to shore, Dad decided to stay with the boat. Jennifer said he made it home around 4:30 the next morning.
