Going overboard can be risky

By Senior Chief Tom Rau, Coast Guard Group Grand Haven, Mi

The following story was told to me by a boater who experienced first hand the challenge of retrieving a person from the water. Boaters should pay heed, it’s not as simple as one might think and it can be risky.

Tim Israel told me that on July 23, 2000, while inbound into South Haven Harbor aboard his 40-foot power boat, he and his crewman Jerry Roach spotted a 30-foot sailboat around a ¼ mile off the pier heads trailing a life ring a 100 yards or so off the stern. “Then we saw two men in the water directly behind the stern,” said Israel. “They were clinging to the stern ladder but couldn’t climb aboard.”

Two ladies standing at the stern watched helplessly. “One man could not climb up the ladder despite the efforts of the second man to boost him up,” said Israel, who gingerly approached the smaller sail boat with the 40-foot steel hulled power boat. Roach grabbed a life ring and jumped into the water.

Roach later told a Grand Haven Tribune reporter, “The man was out of it. His eyes were bloodshot. You could see red on his forehead where the boom had hit him. I could see that his legs were purplish from the amount of time he had been in the cold water.”

Roach climbed aboard the sailboat while the other man in the water bolstered his mate aboard. Roach estimated the man weighted over 270 pounds: “He appeared to be in his mid sixties. He pleaded for me not to let him go as I hauled him aboard.” They transported the victim to the Coast Guard auxiliary facility in South Haven and awaiting paramedics.

The man’s wife adequately summed up the ordeal: “It is serious on Lake Michigan. When accidents happen, they happen so quickly.”

Yes, indeed, and for someone in the water even a slow drifting boat can quickly elude an outstretched hand. From aboard a boat, the drift rate may seem hardly apparent, but from the water it can seem like the boat is forever out of reach. Sadly, too often are the cases where a person falls overboard off a drifting boat and those aboard watch helplessly.

Chief Ellison, Officer in Charge, Station Kenosha, Wisconsin, told me about a case his crew responded to in 2002 involving a 28-foot boat adrift on Lake Michigan with two boys aboard. A man and his brother went for a swim leaving the two boys on the boat; the boat drifted away. The father swam back to the boat, but his brother floundered and drowned as his two nephews looked on. The boys couldn’t operate the boat and the father, while stroking to reach his sons, could do little to assist his brother.

Soon after that family tragedy one like it happened off Michigan City, Indiana. A father, after towing his twin eight-year-old girls behind a boat on a tube, pulled them aboard then took a break and dove into Lake Michigan to find confront from the smoldering heat. The boat began to drift. He struggled to reach it, but exhaustion soon took hold. He drowned as the boat drifted off, leaving the twins alone for two hours until a passing boater heard their desperate cries and rescued them.

Even when those aboard can operate the boat open water recovery can prove to be challenging and even deadly. Commander Anthony Popiel, Commander Group Grand Haven, recently told me of an overboard incident he witnessed during the 1996 Chicago air show. A man in his mid forties while swimming off the stern of a 30-foot power boat at anchor off Chicago Harbor, dove into the lake. For whatever reasons, the captain engaged the throttles and backed down slicing the man’s calf with the prop.

“I was aboard a Coast Guard 41-foot rescue boat directly astern of the boat. Several Coasties aboard leaped into the water to assist the man. He bled to death before the crewmen could get him to our boat. He was only 30-feet away,” said the Commander.

On June 26, 2004 a 15-year-old boy was struck and killed by a power boat when he fell from an inner tube on Emerald Lake, Newaygo County, Michigan. The operator of the power boat struck the boy after he returned to pick him up. The following day a 10-year-old girl was killed when she jumped off the stern of a 34-foot power boat backing down onto a beach near Michigan City, Indiana. . She landed on the boat’s propeller.

Commander Popiel has edited my Boat Smart copy for three years often providing valuable input. He has spent most of his career in search and rescue and is held in high regard by fellow chiefs. The following is a list of must do’s we worked up regarding overboard recovery:

1. Always wear a life jacket when entering the water, absolutely no exceptions.
2. Instruct passengers on how to operate the boat and how to call for help.
3. When approaching a person in the water (PIW) Coast Guard crews deploy two approaches: a direct or indirect pickup. The direct approach brings the boat alongside the PIW, the indirect approach keeps the PIW a safe distance off the boat. I prefer the indirect approach; that way a crewman can toss a line to the PIW, pulling the person to the boat rather than engaging the throttles to approach the PIW. That is, of course, if the PIW is wearing a life jacket and doesn’t need immediate assistance.

4.
When approaching a PIW do so into the wind with the PIW to windward which hopefully will swing the stern away from the PIW.

5. Never engage the engines when a PIW is alongside the boat or off the stern. We suspect that when the Chicago boat captain set the anchor he may have backed down allowing the anchor to take hold. Forgetting the engines were in reverse, he may have engaged the throttle to move forward, allowing room for his friend to swim.

6. Do you have the wherewithal to haul a PIW aboard? If not, hopefully the PIW is wearing a lifejacket.

7. Wearing a life jacket will greatly enhance the chances for a successful overboard recovery. For sure, it will provide needed time for you to figure out a plan to haul the person aboard.

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