FORKS — Rescuers of three fisherman on the Sol Duc River made an attempt to also recover the damaged boat Sunday, but weather conditions made it too dangerous to venture out on the river swollen from recent rains and glacial melt.
Karen Thomas, the mother of rescuer Ryan Thomas, said her son had gone down to the river Sunday, but he and others trying to fetch the stranded boat had decided to delay the attempts to pull it to dry ground until Wednesday.
“The river was just too swollen,” she said.
Ryan Thomas, a hunting and fishing guide, on Saturday rescued three men when their drift boat snagged on rocks and began taking on water.
The men waded away from their nearly half-submerged boat to safety at 4:05 p.m., about 2½ hours after they became stranded in rapids about a mile downriver from the U.S. Highway 101 overpass near Whitcomb-Dimmel Road.
The three men were Chuck Westfall, 75, and Michael Westfall, 34, both of Everett, and Ted Grindle, 74, of Lake Forest Park.
Thomas, 27, who had returned home after a day on the river, grabbed his friend, Quentin Reaume, and some rope and put his boat back in the water.
