Two boats collided on Lake Lanier on Sunday, throwing one driver into the water and leaving his boat for someone to catch.

With two boats and a personal watercraft, friends were relaxing on the lake when one of the boats veered right, hitting the other boat and tossing the driver overboard, said Ranger 1st Class Mark Stephens with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

"Imagine two boats running parallel at 15 miles per hour, with the Jet Ski on the far right. The far left boat hit the one in the middle," Stephens said.

Eddie Burke of Lawrenceville, driver of the middle boat, was thrown into the water and rescued by his friends. The boat began moving in counter-clockwise circles. Stoddard Jeffers of Stone Mountain, driver of the boat on the left, climbed onto the back of the personal watercraft with Frampton Charles of Covington.

"They go into the middle of the circle that the boat is driving, and Jeffers on the back of the Jet Ski attempts to jump into the boat and falls off," Stephens said. "Then it ran over him and hit him."

That’s when Drew Leeuwenburg, a Gainesville resident who lives on the lake, was driving by on the water with his wife Penny and four children.

"We noticed a boat doing doughnuts in front of the dock and thought somebody was showing off, but then we saw another boat watching it from 50 yards away and realized something must be wrong," he said. "We knew someone would have to find a way to stop it."

They cautiously pulled closer to help and found that Jeffers was hurt.

"The boat continued to circle closer and closer to the dock, so we decided not to try to stop it because it would be over in a few minutes," Leeuwenburg said. "After about 10 more times, it made five contacts with the dock. It would hit the dock and keep going and then finally the motor drove into the sand. I’m glad nobody was in it. It would have been dangerous to stop."

Charles jumped in the boat and turned it off, and the others, including the Leeuwenburgs, ran to help Jeffers. Penny Leeuwenburg applied pressure to severe cuts on Jeffers’ shoulder, and Drew Leeuwenburg said he knew they needed to get him to a marina where paramedics could reach him sooner.

"I yelled to two guys on a nearby boat deck to call the police and tell them we were going to Gainesville Marina," he said. "I knew from years of living on the lake that DNR would have done that. We arrived within 20 seconds of when the paramedics arrived."

Jeffers was airlifted to Atlanta Medical Center, where he had surgery. Burke had minor cuts on his arms and legs.

"Jeffers had surgery last night to put his shoulder back together, but they were unable to repair the clavicle, so they did surgery on that today," said Drew Leeuwenburg, who has kept in touch. "He’s in a lot of pain today and worried about infections with the lake water."

The runaway boat damaged the dock and another boat in the same slip, and the woman who owns the spots has contacted her insurance company to process the damages, he said.