Drowning girl pulled from waters off Columbia Point

A 13-year-old girl was pulled out of Boston Harbor off Columbia Point on Tuesday after a frantic search in the water by her friends, lifeguards, a pair of tourists from Holland and the Boston Fire Department. The girl was holding on to a piling under the pier near Carson Beach, right on the border between Dorchester and South Boston, when she disappeared and her friends began screaming for help. Lifeguards ran over from a nearby beach house and the two tourists dove in to aid in the search.

"I heard screaming of a girl, me and my friend ran over," said Job Van Ryn of Holland.

The fire department's dive team was called to the scene after the 4:32 p.m. call came in for a girl in the water.

"Our first truck got there and called for the dive team that came from another house," said BFD spokesman Steve McDonnell in a phone interview yesterday. "There had to be 15 or 20 minutes elapsed."

The first diver in the water, Lt. Bobby Doyle from Ladder 19 in South Boston, found the girl in ten feet of water near the pier. She was unconscious according to McDonnell.

According to the Boston Police Department, the girl was rushed to the Boston Medical Center with life-threatening injuries.

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