LULING, Louisiana — A tugboat crew was quickly rescued after their vessel sank in the Mississippi River after colliding with a Louisiana tanker.
Greg Champagne St. The Charles Parish Sheriff said his office received reports of a collision between a boat and a tugboat Sunday night near the Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge in Luling, Louisiana.
“Initial reports are that all the tugboat crew have been rescued,” Champagne said in a Facebook post around 10:00 p.m. Sunday.
The sheriff’s office said the tanker was traveling upstream when it struck the tugboat and capsized the smaller vessel. WWL-TV reported.
Emergency medical personnel evaluated the crew and would take them to a hospital for treatment if needed, the sheriff’s office said.
The U.S. Coast Guard’s 8th District office in New Orleans, known as the Coast Guard Heartland, said it dispatched personnel to the scene, but the people who went into the river in the crash had already been rescued by the time Guard crews arrived, WWL reported.
The Coast Guard told WWL that an assessment of the possible environmental impacts of the crash site in Luling, 37 miles west of New Orleans, will be conducted.
