ROMNEY, W.Va. — Two West Virginia anglers have quite a fishing story to tell after a trip on the South Branch of the Potomac went horribly wrong.
Police with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources were called to the scene a few hundred yards south of the Hampshire-Hardy County line. Two anglers, Michael Devericks, 47, of Mount Clare, W.Va., and John Johnson, 47, of Pasadena, Md. were stranded on a rock in the middle of the river surrounded by rushing rapids.
The men went into the river when their 14-foot aluminum bass boat struck a rock and began to take on water. The impact caused the boat to turn sideways where it hit another rock and capsized.
Crews from the Maryland state police assisted in the rescue with a Medevac helicopter using a rescue basket. The helicopter plucked the two men from the rock and delivered them to the nearby Sycamore Bridge downstream.
Neither of the men was injured. Natural Resources police said the men had life jackets in the boat, but were not wearing them and when the craft capsized the life jackets washed downstream with their other gear. The two told investigators the water was too deep and swift to risk swimming to shore.