IPSWICH, MASS. (WHDH) - An assistant harbormaster is saying he was just doing his job after pulling five people — including a baby and a pregnant woman — from the water after their boat capsized in Ipswich Saturday.
Matthew Bodwell was patrolling in Plum Island Sound at 3 p.m. when he got a mayday call and immediately headed over to the area by the Ipswich Bay Yacht Club, where he found five people with no life jackets clinging to an overturned aluminum boat.
“Immediately you’re thinking, ‘If you don’t get them out someone’s possibly going to drown,'” Bodwell said. “Every wrong thing runs through your head when you’re trying to get it done safely. And when you’re on the boat by yourself, it’s even harder because you have to have the boat in the right position and yourself in the right position to get them out.”
Starting with the pregnant woman in the water, Bodwell hauled each person into his boat and took them to shore, where no one needed to be hospitalized.
“I was in the right place at the right time,” Bodwell said.
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