Our NBC colleague Cris Collinsworth, former Bengals receiver, Emmy-winning Sunday Night Football analyst, and proprietor of FootballPros.com, had some tense moments on the Ohio River last night.
Per the Associated Press, Collinsworth and 82 other patrons went for an involuntary ride after Jeff Ruby’s Waterfront restaurant broke free from a pier and floated down the flood-level waterway.
The restaurant, which exists on a barge, traveled 85-to-100 feet before coming to rest at a bridge.
A rear line held the barge in place until emergency personnel could arrive.
“As the barge started to float downriver, the rear line came around the front of the pier and it put tension on it and held it,” Covington Fire Department Capt. Chris Kiely said. “The worst thing that could have happened is the barge could have swung out in the current, but luckily the line held.”
Emergency crews rescued the patrons one by one, strapping life jackets onto each person and removing them via “precariously perched ladders and ropes.”
We’ve sent an e-mail to Cris seeking confirmation that he was on the barge. He posted an item at FootballPros.com moments ago without mentioning the ordeal.