Four members of the University of Minnesota’s rowing team are being hailed as heroes after they rescued a woman they had come across in the Mississippi River. Last Wednesday, two coaches and two rowers were practicing on the water when they came across an injured woman who had become tangled in tree branches along the shore. As KMSP FOX 9 reports, the woman who was rescued had already been in the water for a while.
The Star Tribune reports that it was at 7:15 AM that the rowers saw the woman, who was only wearing a T-shirt and underwear. While the woman was conscious, it appeared she was suffering from a broken leg, possibly broken ribs, and hypothermia. “I can’t imagine her lasting much longer,” assistant coach Peter Morgan told the Tribune. “There are not many people on the river. We are very thankful we were there.”
When the rowing team got to the woman, they threw her a life jacket and then pulled her out of the water and onto a motorboat that was being operated by one of the coaches. They then brought her to their rowing club, where an ambulance came to pick her up. WCCO CBS Minnesota notes that the woman, “was taken to a local hospital with what appeared to be non-life threatening injuries.” It is unclear as to how she wound up in the river.
