A lesson learned....

[havasu]

Many are aware that i have a speed boat, and spend alot of time at Lake Havasu.

This is from another boating forum I am on. Pretty interesting read.

At a moments notice **** can take a turn and get serious real fast.

I took the Cougar up river this morning solo from Windsor, usually when I do this I just zip up to the no-wake line at the gorge and come back. Today for some reason I thought I'd go further up and get lunch at Pirates. After lunch I did another odd thing I never do and went up river, no flat water to have fun with a bunch of people pulling kids and stuff, quite a few people on the water for a Tuesday. After a few miles I was just getting ready to turn back when I saw a lady clinging to the reeds on the AZ side waving me down frantically, I shut down and turned toward her. She was clinging to a large dog, the dog was paddling frantically to keep them both afloat. As I get closer she yells that her husband is drowning and point down river to help him. He is about 50 yards down floating fast in the river, he looks like he is really struggling to stay above water. I keep going toward him, he is non verbal at this point, I throw him a vest and he grabs it. I look back toward her and her dog is done, she lets go and starts to go down. I go back to her and I can't find another vest within reach or my throwable, but she is close enough to grab my swim platform. Her dog Is now floating down river about even with me in the boat, so I jump in (no vest on) to get the dog, I pull the dog up and try to swim back to the boat with him but he is killing me, I had to let him go and get back to the boat, kind of half swimming and pushing him every other stroke.

The dog and I get back to the boat swim step and hang on. The lady, hanging on to the swim step is too tired and gassed out to get in the boat, we both just hang on trying to catch our breaths for a few minutes. The 75lb dog is kinda clinging to me and the swim step. She finally gets in and helps me get the dog on the transom. We go back and help him back in but he is too gassed out to help himself onto the swim step but we eventually pull him in. I'm bleeding pretty good on my forearm, the dogs claws cut me up a bit, otherwise everyone is ok.

As we are heading back up river to their day camp, she tells me they had been in the water for an hour and nobody would stop. Given the distance and speed of the current I think it was more like 5-10 minutes they were in the water but it is amazing with all the other boaters that nobody else stopped to help. Apparently they were all in an inflatable floaty thing and fell out then the current took them all down river.

This was a big wake up call for me, I learned some lessons today:
1. Be better prepared, should have had better access to more life vests and throwable.
2. Have a better plan in case this happens again. Generally we have it covered for the people in our boat, but never expected to come across people in the river while boating alone.
3. I should have put a vest on for myself before jumping in the water. The current there is killer.

Have a great 4th of July weekend everyone, I hope these lessons are something that makes us think about water safety more.

 

[Tirediron]

thank you for helping strangers, so many won't now

 

[d_marsh]

Holy crap. I take it you are or were a cop? Sad no one else seemed willing to lend a hand.

 

[havasu]

To clarify, I just copied/pasted what another boater had written this morning. I was not involved at all, and only posted here for the sake of "being prepared." This boater was not prepared, and it nearly cost him his life.
Consider the unknown factor when boating, off roading, snow mobiling, hiking, or anything else for that matter.
Since this was posted, in guessing hundreds of boaters have thought about what they would do in a similar situation, and I'm certain throw rings will be heavily purchased from Amazon.

 

[Weedygarden]

thank you for helping strangers, so many won't now

Holy crap. I take it you are or were a cop? Sad no one else seemed willing to lend a hand.

It wasn't Havasu who saved the people. It was someone else. He is just sharing the story he found.

Water can be dangerous. I heard that 4 people have lost their lives already this summer on Chatfield Reservoir southwest of the Denver metro area, all because of paddle boards. After this weekend, that might be double that, and we are just talking paddleboarders.

I am not a water person. I can't stand to go on boats, go to beaches, swim (even though I have had lots of lessons). I just find zero attraction to water. Can't stand to be in the sun, be around sand, and to deal with all that is involved with water.

Somewhere here, I think, I recently wrote about my daughter having had numerous concussions in her life, because she is a very active person. She thinks she has probably had at least 10 from playing soccer, snowboarding, hang gliding, and more. I don't think she got one when she was skydiving. She broke her ankle doing that and hasn't gone since.

I bought her a paddle board a few years ago, for her birthday. After her last serious concussion from wrestling with a 5 year old friend of hers and getting kicked in the head, I am way more tuned into her safety. Helmets for biking, snowboarding, paddle boarding? Yes, now that the awareness is more. But after I heard about the deaths this summer at Chatfield, I asked her if she had a life jacket or vest? Yes.

How does anyone go out into any water without a life jacket or vest? I would never do that, but of course, I just avoid water, period.

 

[Tommyice]

While up at the cabin, I used to go out in my canoe without a life vest I found it cumbersome to wear while paddling. It worried my dad a lot. He finally got me a "life belt" like he remembered from his Navy days. It was a belt with "suspenders" and would inflate when you pull the cord. I was lucky I never had to see how well it worked.

 

[d_marsh]

To clarify, I just copied/pasted what another boater had written this morning. I was not involved at all, and only posted here for the sake of "being prepared." This boater was not prepared, and it nearly cost him his life.
Consider the unknown factor when boating, off roading, snow mobiling, hiking, or anything else for that matter.
Since this was posted, in guessing hundreds of boaters have thought about what they would do in a similar situation, and I'm certain throw rings will be heavily purchased from Amazon.

I would claim dyslexia but in reality I just jumped to the meat of the post. I am not a boater but its proof positive one has to be ready in every situation but especially in higher risk situations.

 

[Morgan101]

To clarify, I just copied/pasted what another boater had written this morning. I was not involved at all, and only posted here for the sake of "being prepared." This boater was not prepared, and it nearly cost him his life.
Consider the unknown factor when boating, off roading, snow mobiling, hiking, or anything else for that matter.
Since this was posted, in guessing hundreds of boaters have thought about what they would do in a similar situation, and I'm certain throw rings will be heavily purchased from Amazon.

Hindsight is always 20-20. We seldom think of what "might" happen. Hopefully, a lot of people learned from this experience, and nobody was hurt. You are so right. Things like this can happen in every activity we do every day.

 

[UserNameTaken]

I heard about that. Someone drowned in Bullhead yesterday, fell off a float with no jacket, and the weekend is far from over. Someone else nearly went down at Davis camp by the dam.

Anybody thinking of recreating on the Colorado River should be aware that river is trecherous. It can flow at 4 kts or more. Many, many people have died (I'm sure in the hundreds). ALWAYS wear a life vest, either a ski vest or co2 inflatable vest on any body of water. The life you save may be your own!

I am a very strong swimmer, I grew up at the beach, and I've surfed Pipeline. I have been "pounded" by big surf. But my wife and I nearly drowned about ten years ago on Lake Mohave. We used to swim a mile several days a week. One day we weren't paying proper attention and a thunderstorm was brewing. We were about 500 feet offshore finishing our swim when a microburst hit us with about 60-80 mph winds. We weren't even that far off and within a couple of minutes were getting foot high chop even that close to shore. The far shore was about a mile and a half away, and it was about half an hour before sunset.

Then the rain hit in a wall. We couldn't see which direction to go other than upwind was toward shore. We were stroking it out as hard as we could, but were slowly being pushed out into the lake. My wife was ahead of me about 15 ft, and began having trouble doing the crawl in the chop. Then she got disoriented and started swimming in the wrong direction, so I had to give up ground and go get her (we lost about 40 ft, not far, but enough to drown). We stayed shoulder to shoulder after that, but were both getting really tired. I was afraid if we had to go into a deadman rest position or if I had to hold her on her back we'd be blown offshore in the dark. I remember thinking, "This is how people drown."

The only way we could make headway was to go underwater and breast stroke. Luckily my wife is really good underwater. That skill saved us. We'd dive and make about 50 ft, get a couple of breaths and repeat. Once we got a couple hundred feet the chop started dropping, as well as the wind and rain, and we could see the shore again. We were both pretty tired and still in about 15 ft of water, but we could side stroke and crawl again, and made it to the shallows with another good story to tell. The whole thing lasted maybe 15 minutes.

We came pretty darn close to a double drowning. I will never go in the lake or river without a co2 inflatable life vest. Even in knee deep water people can slip on a rock in the river and get swept downstream into deep water. Be safe and please listen to me.

 

[havasu]

I heard about that. Someone drowned in Bullhead yesterday, fell off a float with no jacket, and the weekend is far from over. Someone else nearly went down at Davis camp by the dam.

Anybody thinking of recreating on the Colorado River should be aware that river is trecherous. It can flow at 4 kts or more. Many, many people have died (I'm sure in the hundreds). ALWAYS wear a life vest, either a ski vest or co2 inflatable vest on any body of water. The life you save may be your own!

I am a very strong swimmer, I grew up at the beach, and I've surfed Pipeline. I have been "pounded" by big surf. But my wife and I nearly drowned about ten years ago on Lake Mohave. We used to swim a mile several days a week. One day we weren't paying proper attention and a thunderstorm was brewing. We were about 500 feet offshore finishing our swim when a microburst hit us with about 60-80 mph winds. We weren't even that far off and within a couple of minutes were getting foot high chop even that close to shore. The far shore was about a mile and a half away, and it was about half an hour before sunset.

Then the rain hit in a wall. We couldn't see which direction to go other than upwind was toward shore. We were stroking it out as hard as we could, but were slowly being pushed out into the lake. My wife was ahead of me about 15 ft, and began having trouble doing the crawl in the chop. Then she got disoriented and started swimming in the wrong direction, so I had to give up ground and go get her (we lost about 40 ft, not far, but enough to drown). We stayed shoulder to shoulder after that, but were both getting really tired. I was afraid if we had to go into a deadman rest position or if I had to hold her on her back we'd be blown offshore in the dark. I remember thinking, "This is how people drown."

The only way we could make headway was to go underwater and breast stroke. Luckily my wife is really good underwater. That skill saved us. We'd dive and make about 50 ft, get a couple of breaths and repeat. Once we got a couple hundred feet the chop started dropping, as well as the wind and rain, and we could see the shore again. We were both pretty tired and still in about 15 ft of water, but we could side stroke and crawl again, and made it to the shallows with another good story to tell. The whole thing lasted maybe 15 minutes.

We came pretty darn close to a double drowning. I will never go in the lake or river without a co2 inflatable life vest. Even in knee deep water people can slip on a rock in the river and get swept downstream into deep water. Be safe and please listen to me.

Another river rat aware of how treacherous the Colorado River can get!