SALEM, MASS. (WHDH) - Salem firefighters came to the rescue of a fisherman who found himself stuck in waist-deep mud as the tide was coming in on Wednesday.
Around 10:45 a.m., firefighters got a call from the fisherman who was sinking into the tidal flats next to Furlong Park.
With the tide still too far out to launch boats, the rescue team had to get creative. They grabbed some plywood from a nearby lumber yard and started laying those boards out one by one.
Eventually, they got to the middle of the North River and pulled the man from the mud using the same boards to get him back to shore.
His girlfriend, watching it all from the banks of the river.
In all, the rescue took about an hour.
The fisherman was uninjured.
The fire department said people often dig for worms in the tidal flats but fishing is less common. And rescues, even less so. They’re just glad their improvised methods worked out.
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