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Police: 3 Men Rescued From Minnehaha Falls Spillway

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Three men were rescued from a popular fishing spot near the Minnehaha Falls Thursday night in the midst of a severe thunderstorm.

The Minneapolis Fire Department says Minneapolis Park Police officers arrived at the scene at about 8 p.m. near Wabun Park. They found the imperiled men clinging to the grates of a spillway some 15-feet below the mouth of the falls.

Minnehaha Falls Rescue
(credit: CBS)

"Three fishermen were fishing on the spillway, and with ... all the heavy rains it overwhelmed the sewer system ... they got overwhelmed by water and clung to some gates," said Cpt. Staffan Swanson. "Water was pushing the gates at a high rate to a point where they couldn't get out."

Rescuers made some harnesses and got all three men out safely. Swanson said if rescuers had not arrived in time, the men would have ended up in the Mississippi River.

The men were taken to Hennepin County Medical Center. Their identities and conditions have not been released.

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