SLEEPY HOLLOW - Excessive speed and alcohol resulted in a Hudson River boating accident last night that injured two.
The operator, a Yorktown man, was charged with drunken boating.
"Two Loose Screws," a 27-foot Sea Ray pleasure boat carrying a husband and wife and a man in his 70s went up onto the rocks near the Tarrytown lighthouse around 11:30 p.m.
The boat was totally out of the water, Sleepy Hollow Assistant Fire Chief John Korzelius said.
"To my amazement it was in one piece... Just the fact that nobody was dead was amazing," he said.
Westchester County police charged Robert Boeschl, 48, of 1365 Rustic Ridge Court, with boating while intoxicated, a misdemeanor, and said he will face additional charges.
Boeschl had a .21 percent blood-alcohol level and there were empty beer cans near the pilot's seat, county police Lt. James Luciano said.
He struck a buoy and was going very fast, very close to the shore for about a mile, Luciano said. Police did not know from where Boeschl had set out nor where he was going.
He had the proper equipment on board to navigate, Luciano said, but speed and intoxication put him on the rocks.
Boeschl's wife was taken to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla and being evaluated today for a possible punctured lung and fractured ribs, police said.
The other passenger 's hand was gashed and he had shoulder pain. He was taken to Phelps Memorial Hospital Center in Sleepy Hollow, Luciano said.
"We were expecting them to be ejected" by the sudden impact with the rocks, Luciano said.
The rescue involved a rare combination of land and marine units, Luciano said.
The boat was towed from the rocks by a truck. The injured were carried from the boat over rocks after rescuers cut a hole in a fence from the old General Motors plant. Fire trucks illuminated the scene and boats monitored the rescue, Tarrytown fire Chief Michael Coffey said.
The rescue took about an hour.
A Tarrytown Fire Department boat was first on the scene, joined by Sleepy Hollow, Irvington, Piermont, Nyack, Westchester police and Rockland County sheriff marine units.
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