CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – As summer weather approaches, more people will be going out to enjoy Clarksville’s creeks and rivers. But accidents can happen in the blink of an eye, and each second counts when first responders are dispatched to these rural areas.
Luckily, Clarksville Fire Rescue now has an airboat that cuts response times down to from hours to minutes. The rescue airboat is getting ready to coast the waters for its third season.
Video by Wesley Irvin
Why an airboat?
“We got it (the airboat) for Blueway response,” Brand McCurdy, assistant chief of Special Operations, told Clarksville Now. “Anything up the Red River and up West Fork Creek.”
The Blueway runs along Big West Fork Creek from Robert Clark Park to Billy Dunlop Park. It’s a multi-hour float or kayak trip, and if something happens along the way, the creek is too shallow for a standard motorboat’s propeller.
Before CFR purchased the 2021 Diamondback airboat, it would take two to three hours to get to someone using kayaks, McCurdy said. Now, they can make the journey up the river in 15-20 minutes.
“From the 101st Parkway bridge down to the Red River, there’s hardly any water movement, and it’s static, so you’ve got to paddle the whole way,” McCurdy said. “But with the airboat, we can travel at speed over shallow spots, logs, anything we need to get over there and help someone pretty quick. So, it’s a great asset for the fire department.”
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Mainly for the much-bigger Cumberland River, CFR has a small fleet of watercrafts, including a 24-foot Boston Whaler, two Zodiacs (rigid inflatable boat) and two swift-water rafts.
On the open waters of the Red River, they typically use the Boston Whaler, but McCurdy doesn’t like taking it past the Providence Boulevard bridge because of the numerous stumps and logs. That’s where the airboat comes in. It’s used to scale shallow waters and even portions of land.
“Really, this opened up access to the entire Red River system,” McCurdy said. “We’ve been as far as I-24 up the Red River toward Port Royal and we’ve been all the way to Tiny Town Road up the West Fork (Creek).”
Waverly flood and rescued kayakers
McCurdy said the airboat has been instrumental in helping people over the last three years, and not just in Clarksville. On Aug. 21, 2021, one of the deadliest flash floods in Middle-Tennessee’s history ravaged the city of Waverly in Humphreys County. Over 20 people died in this catastrophe, and dozens were missing. That’s when CFR stepped in.
CFR sent Rescue Team 1, as well as their airboat team, to assist with search and rescue. They were joined by a dozen volunteers from Montgomery County Emergency Management Agency.
Almost a year later, on July 4, 2022, an 80-year-old woman went missing on a kayaking trip. The woman and her companion set out paddling between 5 and 6 p.m. on Big West Fork Creek. At 9:51 p.m., when the woman’s daughter hadn’t heard from her in four or five hours, she called 911, and Clarksville Fire Rescue dispatched a swift water raft, several water rescue units, and the airboat. The couple was found and rescued at 10:23 p.m.
McCurdy says there was one distinct call they got in Easter Sunday 2022: A little boy had gone missing. Dontavious Talley, a 6th grader at Kenwood Middle School, was playing with other children near the Red River when he fell in the water.
CFR responded with their airboat to locate the missing boy. When they found him in the river, he was taken by LifeFlight helicopter to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, but he didn’t make it.
Most airboat trips, however, end with happier endings, rescuing kayakers who – either by accident or not – bit off more than they could chew attempting to paddle past Billy Dunlop Park. It’s an 8-mile trip to the next takeout point, which is on the Cumberland River at McGregor Park or Trice Landing.
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