Two men aiding in the search for two apparent drowning victims were injured themselves when their boats overturned during multiple rescue attempts. According to TWRA spokesman Don King, one of the injured men was Jereme Odom, a TWRA Wildlife Officer from Montgomery County. The other man was a Montgomery County EMS worker.
Two teenagers disappeared last night while swimming in Ringgold Creek near Clarksville. They were apparently swept over a lowhead dam and caught in the hydrolic beneath the dam.
The first rescuers to the scene went out in a boat to try and rescue or recover a body that they believed to be in the water near the dam. In the process, their boat was pulled into the turbulence and they were thrown into the water.
TWRA officers had also been called. Montgomery County Officers Dale Grandstaff and Jereme Odom then
moved in with another boat to try and rescue the rescuers.
According to King the two officers succeeded in getting to the men and getting them out of the water, however one had nearly drowned and was in bad shape.
However TWRA Officers Grandstaff and Odom's boat was then drawn into the severe turblunce and they were thrown into the violent waters.
More rescuers on shore were able to throw them ropes and get them out of the water. However Odom had to be hospitalized overnight. He was released from the hospital this morning.
King says the initial EMS worker that Odom and Grandstaff rescued is listed in critical condition at Vanderbilt Medical Center. He has not been identified.
The bodies of both of the teenagers who drowned initally were recovered Friday morning. Friends and family members on the scene identified the boys, both 15 years old, as Vincent Kruk and Philiip Siefert.
Clarksville police are investigating their deaths, however TWRA Boating Investigator Glen Moats is investigating the following accidents of the rescuers.