A 61-year-old man may face criminal charges for getting in the way when emergency personnel tried to help people involved in a boat crash Thursday night on the Fox River, St. Charles police said.
Impairment was not a factor in the crash between two boats, which they are continuing to investigate, police said.
A 27-year-old West Chicago man was operating a Seadoo Sportster boat when it collided with an Ebbtide boat operated by a 34-year-old St. Charles man, police said in a news release.
A 33-year-old Downers Grove woman who had been on the Ebbtide ended up in the water and was transported to Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital for injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening, according to police.
About 11:10 p.m. Thursday, police and fire departments responded to the river for the reported crash. When they got to the edge of the river along the Pottawatomie Golf Course, other people from the two boats were attending to the injured woman, police said.
A 61-year-old neighbor across the river said he heard the crash and took another boat over to help, according to police. But police said the man interfered with emergency personnel trying to investigate the crash and attend to the people involved.
Although four officers told the man to leave the scene, and he was warned he’d be arrested if he stayed, he continued to obstruct their efforts, police said.
“He was yelling at the officers and medics, trying to engage the parties in conversation while the officers were gathering information,” Deputy Police Chief Dave Kintz said in an email.
The man would not leave the immediate area of the scene when it became clear he was not involved, Kintz said.
Kintz said police had no idea what the man’s motives were and that, as far as they know, he didn’t know the people on the boats that collided.
Police said they took him into custody “after a brief struggle.” He was released on bond for a charge of resisting and obstructing a peace officer, a class A misdemeanor, according to the news release.
As of Friday afternoon, the charges did not appear to have been filed in public court records.
Police said the man tried to start another fight with officers when he was leaving the police station.
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