3 rescued after airboat overturns

WEST COCOA, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Brevard County Fire Rescue says one person was hospitalized as a trauma alert after a watercraft overturned in the St. Johns River.

Two other patients received non life-threatening injuries after an airboat hit ground near the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp.  Paramedics said they used a good Samaritans boat to get access to the patients.

"He hit a cow, then must have hit a bank," explained Danny Cowart, who helped his friend get the boat back on land. "Me and the owner of the boat went there and saw that it was up on the bank, so we pushed it over off the bank, got it running and he drove it in."

"They said they were trying to go into the airboat trail," said William Treadway, who assisted the victims, "[and one of them] got ejected from the airboat." 

The passenger who was ejected was transported by helicopter to Holmes Regional Medical Center.

"One of them's in the hospital, one of them has a broken leg, and one of them has head trauma," Cowart added.