Two men were found dead after a powerboat collided with a pontoon boat around 10 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 29 near the Ripley Boat Club.
The three passengers of the powerboat were rescued with one being air-cared to University of Cincinnati Medical Center, but it took an extensive search of the river to find the two fishermen who were on the pontoon boat that was struck by the powerboat.
The search began shortly after the crash on the night of Aug. 29.
The search was suspended after 2 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 30 but resumed around 9 a.m. that same morning.
On the morning of Monday, Aug. 31, the body of Daryl Kilgore, 49, was found in the Ohio River near the Ripley Boat Club.
An ODNR K-9 unit searched the river on Monday, and that evening the body of Williams “Stacy” Harper, 49, was recovered.
Clark Gray, a resident of The Villa’s at Rivers Edge in Ripley, was sitting in his kitchen when he heard a noise outside his house. Gray said he thought it may have been a boat hitting a log, which is a common occurrence.
“It happens all the time, so I didn’t pay much attention,” said Gray.
Then Gray said he could hear people talking from a boat on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, and heard someone say the boat was sinking.
Gray said he could hear no screaming or crying for help, just people talking. Gray knew that calling 9-1-1 may take too long for emergency crews to respond and realized there was no time to spare with a sinking boat, so he immediately called his brother who owns a boat and lives just five houses down. But Gray’s brother did not have his boat in the water, so he then made a call to the Ripley Boat Club to see if someone could send some boaters out to assist in the rescue.
“I told the (Ripley) Boat Club they will see the lights,” said Gray.
Gray had no idea what exactly had happened and that there were two boats involved at the time he made the call to the Ripley Boat Club.
Boaters from the Ripley Boat Club took to the river to assist the survivors involved in the accident while 9-1-1 was called to the scene.
There were more than half a dozen agencies taking to the river on Monday to assist in the search, after over 20 hours of searching the river on Sunday.
“We would like to thank the many individuals who offered support in various ways,” it said in a release from the Ripley Fire Department after the search concluded.
Those providing support in the search included: the residents of The Villa’s at Rivers Edge, Dustin Faul, Southern Hills Community Bank, Ohio Christian Aid – Search and Rescue, The Ripley Boat Club, and Giovanni’s Pizza.
There is a GoFundMe page on Facebook to help with funeral arrangements for Daryl Kilgore.
The crash remains under investigation by the ODNR.
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