Father, son rescued after boat capsizes during duck hunting accident

St. Mary Sheriff's Office deputies plucked hunters from water, LDWF says.

A father and son were rescued from Duck Lake in St. Martin Parish yesterday morning (Dec. 27) after the pair’s boat capsized during a duck-hunting trip, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries reported.

Russ Tircuit, 58, and his 25-year-old son Michael Tircuit, both of Addis, were rescued from the water about 8:35 a.m. by St. Mary Sheriff’s Office deputies and transported to the Franklin Foundation Hospital for hypothermia treatment, the LDWF said.

Rescue personnel received a 911 call around 8 a.m. from Michael Tircuit, who told the rescuers where he and his father were and that they were clinging to the bow of their capsized boat.

According to Michael Tircuit, he and his father were duck hunting and got into their 16-foot aluminum boat to retrieve a duck that was floating away. The boat apparently struck an object in the water, causing the boat to take a violent right turn and ejecting the hunters.

According to Michael Tircuit, his father was wearing a kill switch that cut off the boat’s 90-horsepower motor, the LDWF said. When the boat came to a stop, the pair was able to swim to the capsized boat and hang on until rescuers arrived.

“If the father was not wearing a kill switch, then this incident could have been a tragedy,” LDWF’s Col. Winton Vidrine said. “We have seen boating incidents similar to this one that turned fatal because the operator was not wearing a kill switch and the runaway boat hit ejected people in the water.”

The LDWF Enforcement Division will conduct an investigation to determine the cause of the incident.