Daring 20-mile night rescue saves stranded tubers on Chattahoochee

COWETA COUNTY, Ga. - A metro Atlanta couple spent a harrowing few hours on the Chattahoochee River when the sun went down on their tubing journey Sunday. 

The Coweta County rescuers went on a more than 20-mile search down river in the dark. 

In this part of the Chattahoochee River, it’s Coweta County’s Station 2 that comes to the rescue. They were joined further down river by firefighters from Carroll and Heard counties late Sunday night. That's when a couple failed to show up 12 hours after setting off from Riverside Park on State Road 16.  

Coweta County firefighters say the low and slow flowing Hooch didn’t deliver them to their intended destination by nightfall. With no cell service, they were stranded, faced with the choice of either continuing to float in complete darkness or staying put and hoping for a rescue. 

"They had zero visibility. The moon provided some light. They couldn’t see anything. There were no places to escape from. There were no points of reference to go by.  No boat docks. There wasn’t anything for miles," said Mark Griffin-Battalion Chief Coweta County Fire Rescue. 

"They tell me that the Chattahoochee is running pretty low right now, about 2.8 feet. And with the low level, that means that there’s a slow current.  And for this couple, they did not get as far down the river as they had hoped by the time the sun went down."

So around 11 p.m., Coweta County firefighters set off into the dark river. Authorities say the bottom of the Chattahoochee River in that location is strewn with big boulders. So, navigating more than 20 miles in the dark with just the boat lights is treacherous at just three feet or less. 

"On some occasions we had to pick the boat up and carry it over the rocks without the engine running.  We had to do that about a dozen times, so we were all pretty tired by the end of the night and sore." 

The firefighters found the couple on rocks in the river just after 1:30 Monday morning, about a mile from their intended destination. 

They say notifying relatives about their float trip and expected return time was a prudent measure they had taken."  

They warn that the Chattahoochee at night can be unforgiving and filled with critters, with no exit points for miles.