The Reading Fire Department was called to the Schuylkill River Monday night for a water rescue.
Crews say it is early in the season for call like this, but they recently acquired a new rescue raft and used it to pull a swimmer to safety.
"For my experience, I believe it's more recoveries than rescues, so more deceased people than live people we remove from the river," said Lt. Steve Ginder with the Reading Fire Dept. Thankfully, that wasn't the case when rescue crews were called out Monday. First responders say they found a teenager clinging to part of a tree sticking up out of the middle of the river.
"He was swimming upstream, not a strong swimmer, got swept down and luckily hit that," Ginder said. "I don't know where he would've been if he didn't catch that. There's not a lot of trees in the river."