Search for missing boatie continues
Emergency services are continuing to search for a 23-year-old man thrown into Lake Macquarie when his boat capsized on Saturday night.
The alarm was raised about 8pm Saturday when it was reported a small boat had flipped in the water near Channel St, Swansea, about 20km south of Newcastle.
When police arrived three men had been pulled from the water, but 23-year-old Luke Smith was still missing.
Footage of the night-time rescue shows fully clothed men being pulled from the dark water onto a dinghy.
Chris Totten was with his friends when they heard about the boat crash and jumped in their dinghy to go help the men.
“(We) got told there was one more, tried our best to look for him for a good hour and a half (to) two hours but there was just no sign of him,” Mr Totten told 9 News.
Two of the men rescued Saturday night are aged 23, the other is 20 years old.
Paramedics took one of the men to hospital to be treated for hypothermia.
The master of the boat was taken to hospital for mandatory testing.
It’s understood the boat struck a buoy before the four men were thrown from their vessel.
The police Marine Area Command, police and Westpac Rescue helicopters and Fire and Rescue NSW all scoured the area, but the search was suspended because of poor light on Saturday.
The search resumed on Sunday with emergency services still unable to find Mr Smith at time of publication.
