Three people were rescued from the Annisquam River off the Annisquam Yacht Club at 17 River Road and taken to the hospital Tuesday evening, fire Chief Eric Smith said in a statement.
Smith said Fire Department crews responded around 7 p.m. Tuesday to the yacht club for a report of three people in the water. All three were removed from the water.
All three were taken by ambulance to Addison Gilbert Hospital on Washington Street. One was in critical condition, one was in serious condition, and one was in stable condition, according to rescue personne;
In addition to Gloucester firefighters, Beauport Ambulance, the Gloucester Harbormaster and the U.S. Coast Guard responded to the scene.
Smith’s statement did not identify those rescued or the circumstances about how they got into the water.
“Thoughts are with the three people pulled from the water earlier today,” Mayor Greg Verga posted Tuesday night on Faceboo.
Launch driver Mac Trotman told news videographer and photographer Stanley Forman he was driving the launch and was coming in off Cambridge Beach and saw there were two boats waiting, with one with a kid in it being comforted and another boat in which it looked like someone was being pulled from the water.
The launch driver said he had to come back to the dock because he had to pick up more people, and when he got back to the yacht club there were ambulances and police. He described the location of the incident as between Cambridge and Wingaersheek beaches.
“When I came back or when I got to the dock there was people rushing in here and the two boats that were waiting out there, (were) tied up to the front float over there,” Trotman said in a video taken by Stanley Forman.
He described one boat as a 20-foot Key West and said the other might have been a Boston Whaler. He said he saw two people in one boat, but he could not tell how many were in the other.