Tourists Stranded When Airboat Flips

A handful of tourists in South Florida spent several hours Thursday night stranded in the dark, swampy waters of the Everglades after the airboat they were on flipped over in the water.

“We were trying to take a left turn and he was trying to go kind of wide and just went over,” said Betsy Fisher. “I said to her, is this really happening? I can’t believe this is really happening!”

“We sat on top of the boat, sideways, I guess for about two and a half hours,” said Peter Fisher.

A helicopter was the first sign of help the group saw. The chopper dropped down a bag with some emergency supplies for the group. The main concern the group had was mosquitoes, which the group said were all over the place and “horrible.”

While the mosquitoes were the main worry, another thing that kept them nervous through the entire ordeal.

“Alligators,” Peter Fisher said. “We just kept on the lookout for alligators because we weren’t far off the water. Once we got out of the water on to the boat, we were just sitting there. We weren’t as scared as we were when we were standing in the water.”

While all of the cell phones were waterlogged, somebody’s had just enough juice to give a GPS signal to help alert rescuers to their location. After the rescue, they agreed they were probably going to look for a new way to enjoy their travel.