Stranded boaters rescued

Dyer and Lake county rescue squad members ponder their next move at about 3 a.m. Saturday at Everett's Lake.

Tony Jones of Dyer, his daughter, 14, and her friend, 15, from Rutherford, were reported missing on the river after Jones's wife had approached local fishermen for help at about 10:45 p.m. Friday.

Justin Daniels, Scott Gean and Johnathon Cupples were fishing at Everett's Lake when she told them about the missing man and girls.

The trio had put in about 6 p.m. at Everett's Lake aboard a 16-foot jonboat with a 35-hp outboard motor, she told the three fishermen. Jones was wearing swimming trunks; the girls were wearing bikinis.

When the group had not returned by dark, Jones's wife drove the area and began her unfruitful search.

"She said she'd been looking for them and asked us if we could look for them," said Daniels.

The stranded trio had a cell phone, but service was poor. The few times Daniels talked to Jones's daughter to try and find a landmark to help locate them, "she was real upset."

"We know the river well," said Daniels. "But they didn't know where they were at all; it was like looking for a needle in a haystack."

Daniel alerted the Dyer County Sheriff's Department at 12:05 a.m. and the Dyer County Rescue Squad was contacted. Lake and Lauderdale county squads joined in the search, and Mississippi County, Ark. volunteers checked their section of the river. The Pemiscot County, Mo. rescue squad was called, but said they would begin looking on Saturday morning.

The U.S. Coast Guard in Memphis broadcast the alert to all vessels in the suspected stretch of river. A request was also sent to Verizon to get a plot from the last telephone call made.

At 5:49 a.m., workers aboard the giant triple-screw towboat "Dorothy Stone" discovered the party near the Nucor Steel terminal marker near river mile 823 (the I-155 bridge is at mile marker 840).

They had tied the boat to a tree after the motor had quit, reports said, but the engine came to life and the three in the boat headed north.

Dyer County Rescue Squad Lt. Ray Hatch said reports filtered back that the missing boaters were again under way and moving north.

"So after we wait and don't see them, we head out again," said Hatch.

The boat motor had quit again, and the three again tied up to a tree near the riverbank.

A rescue squad boat and a Dyer County Sheriff's Department boat spotted the missing boaters at about 7:30 a.m., where they had stopped across the water from the grain elevator at Heloise.

The rescue squad pulled the disabled boat to the Heloise landing, where Dyer County Sheriff's deputies transported them to Everett's Lake at 8:17 a.m.