Busy day for PWFD starts with capsize in marina

Saturday was a busy day for the Port Washington Fire Department, which was called out just after 6 a.m. for a boat capsizing in the marina.

It turns out an 18-foot fishing boat being launched had been sinking for about an hour, Fire Chief Mark Mitchell said.

The owner of the boat, Terry Strutz of the Town of Port Washington, apparently tried to launch the boat but didn’t put the drain plug in, Mitchell said.

The boat rolled over about 10 feet from the end of the launching ramp, sinking in about 17 feet of water.

Strutz was aided by other fishermen who “fished him out” of the water, Mitchell said.

“I don’t know if he was trying to deal with this all on his own,” Mitchell added, but Strutz didn’t call for help for about an hour.

Ozaukee County Emergency Government Director Scott Ziegler noticed a petroleum leak, either from gas or oil, and notified the Department of Natural Resources, he said.

“It was relatively minor,” Mitchell said of the spill.

Ziegler set up a boom to contain the spill and the dive team and firefighters donned wetsuits to place straps around the boat so it could be righted, Mitchell said.

Once the boat was righted, the water was pumped out and it was put on its trailer, he said.

Both Mitchell and Harbormaster Dennis Cherny noted this wasn’t Strutz’s first experience with a capsized boat. Almost a year ago to the day, he was found clinging to his overturned boat about eight miles east-southeast of Port Washington. Strutz was hypothermic and essentially unresponsive when he was found and the friend he was fishing with was never found.

“I told him, ‘You’ve got to stay off Lake Michigan. It’s just not good to you,’” Cherny said. 

But the Fire Department’s day wasn’t over. They received a call of an injured 37-year-old woman on north beach. After traversing debris to get to the beach, they found the woman, who said she had been hiking on the lower portion of the bluff taking pictures and fell, Mitchell said, adding she was complaining of ankle pain.

The crew put her in a Stokes basket, then brought its inflatable boat to the scene to transport her to the marina, where she was taken by ambulance to Aurora Medical Center in Grafton to be checked out, Mitchell said.