Man rescued after boat capsizes on Platte River

Officials rescued a man from the Platte River in northern Benton County Tuesday afternoon after the boat he was on capsized and he was swept away, according to reports.

Benton County Chief Deputy Troy Heck said three people were on a 17-foot jon boat (a flat-bottomed boat typically used for fishing) that had capsized after it got trapped in some trees that had fallen into the river, the St. Cloud Times reports.

Deborah Pierce, 58, of Indiana, and her brother Mark Bode, 51, of Lakeville, were able to get to shore by holding onto the trees that had swamped their boat. But Craig Bode, 56, of Hawaii, was swept downstream, the newspaper says.

Rescuers found Bode holding onto a tree about 50 feet from shore and 1,000 feet downstream from the boat. They threw a life jacket to him, but he wasn't able to get it on, WJON reports.

Firefighters and a sheriff's deputy went into the water and pulled him to shore. Bode was brought to St. Cloud Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, KSTP says.

None of the boaters were wearing life jackets, reports say.