Libertyville church group gets caught up in Boston boat accident

Kelsey Gould, 15, was on the lower deck of a Boston tour boat when, suddenly, she felt like she was in the middle of a movie scene.

"There were light bulbs breaking and a TV on the wall came crashing down," said the Libertyville High School student. "It kind of felt like really bad plane turbulence except stuff was flying everywhere."

On their way to a mission trip in Maine, Gould's group from First Presbyterian Church in Libertyville stopped in Boston Saturday for a daylong whale watching boat tour.

But 20 minutes into the tour, the boat with 174 people on board had to be evacuated after it ran aground in Boston Harbor and began taking on water. No one was seriously injured, according to the Coast Guard.

Gould said one of her group's adult leaders was taken to the hospital with a minor injury but released a few hours later.

After the crash, everyone on the boat was given life jackets to put on, said Sarah Blankenhorn, 17, a Libertyville High School student who was also on the boat.

"It was pretty scary because no one knew what was going on," she said. "I thought we were going in the water."

Instead, a group of police boats and civilian boats responded to a distress call and helped the group get off the boat, Gould said.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Connie Terrell said Coast Guard station boats, good Samaritans and other emergency responders all safely removed 168 passengers and six crew members from the 87-foot Boston-based vessel The Massachusetts.

Terrell says the Coast Guard was taking passengers to a pier about 3 miles from the boat, which was blocking a channel in an entrance to Boston Harbor. The incident is being investigated, Terrell added.

The church's pastor, Rev. Brian Paulson, was at a church convention in Minnesota when he got the call about the boat accident.

"From what I understand, a few adults who were standing on deck got a few scrapes, but on the whole, everyone is OK," Paulson said. "It sounds like God was watching over them, which is why we pray in advance of their departure."

In total, there were a handful of adults and 38 teenagers from Lake County on the trip, Paulson said.

By Saturday night, the group was already back on the road to meet up with other teenagers to spend a week repairing dilapidated homes in Maine. The Libertyville church has been sending teenagers on similar missions around the country for at least the past 10 years, Paulson said.

"It's a trip these teenagers will remember their entire lives," he said. "Even without the extra drama."