: Staying Safe on the Water
Mandatory safety education for boaters has significantly reduced the number of accidents on New Jersey waters, State Police say. Experts also offer this advice: Wear a life vest, avoid alcohol and learn to swim.
Failure to wear a life vest, consumption of alcohol and inability to swim are factors in most of the 700 accidental boating deaths that occur each year in U.S. waters, according to a Gannett News Service analysis of Boating Accident data.
With the summer season upon us, Coast Guard and other maritime safety officials remind boaters they have control over these potentially fatal factors — if they're willing to invest a little time, discipline and restraint.
Mandatory safety education has made a huge impact on safety in New Jersey, where boating seasons routinely saw more than 300 accidents a year in the early to mid-1990s, said Trooper Rich Brown of the State Police Marine Services Bureau.
In this decade, there's been an average of 169 accidents a year, with just 132 in 2006.
"That downward trend really got started in the 1996-97 seasons when we started to see the effect of mandatory education requirements" for personal watercraft riders, Brown said.
But last year still brought 11 deaths on the water, according to State Police statistics.
Failure to properly use personal flotation devices remains one of the most persistent problems that troopers see on the water, and "year after year, most of the people who die in Boating Accidents die from drowning," Brown said.
Of the 3,507 people nationwide who died in Boating Accidents from 2001 to 2005, about 80 percent weren't wearing life vests, according to the GNS analysis of Coast Guard data.
"We need to get to where people think about life vests the way they now think about seat belts," said Doug Luper, safety compliance officer with the Coast Guard Office of Boating Safety. "It needs to be automatic."
The life-and-death importance of wearing a life vest is a central theme of the Coast Guard's "You're in Command — Boat Responsibly" safety campaign this summer.
Floridian Brian Wallschlaeger learned his lesson the hard way.
He was knocked off his boat last July by his 102-pound Labrador, Heidi. Wallschlaeger wasn't wearing a life vest and treaded water and swam for almost 24 hours before reaching shore.
"I realized I was in real trouble pretty quickly," the 35-year-old New Smyrna Beach resident recalled recently. "I'm a bit more cautious when I go out now, but I'll admit I don't wear a life vest every time."
It's an all-too-common attitude, say boating safety experts, especially among young male boaters who retain a sense of immortality in spite of brushes with disaster.
Fewer than 10 percent of adults surveyed by the Coast Guard said they wear life vests, and that number has remained fairly static for almost a decade.
Other factors weigh heavily as well.
About 59 percent of adults who died in Boating Accidents couldn't swim, according to the GNS analysis. Almost one in four had been drinking.
"If I could just get them to put down the booze and put on a PFD (personal flotation device), we could save most of the people who die," said Gail Kulp, education director of the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators.
The data show that more than 40 percent of boat operators in fatal accidents had no boating education, even though most states require at least some training.
That's where the progress shown by New Jersey's mandatory training law is so striking, say state police and volunteer educators with the Coast Guard Auxiliary and U.S. Power Squadron.
In 1990, when safety classes were required only of new boaters age 17 and under, there were 377 accidents in New Jersey, said Brown of the state police. Last year, there were 132 accidents, and in the meantime, the state's boat registrations climbed from 160,000 to 190,000 he said.
After decades of work, safety experts say they still struggle with a culture that doesn't take boating as seriously as it should, despite annual campaigns that stress education, abstinence from alcohol and the all-important life vest.
"The public perceives boating as different than driving a car," said Jeff Hoedt, chief of the Coast Guard's Office of Boating Safety. "(They think) it's recreation — it's free of the laws."
In all types of waters
The data GNS examined include reports on nearly 24,000 Boating Accidents. The data are kept by the Coast Guard but were collected by law enforcement and boating officials regarding accidents on bodies of water throughout the country. Coast Guard officials said their database contains virtually all fatal accidents and about 80 percent of nonfatal accidents requiring hospitalization nationwide, except California.
Alaska, which has a relatively small population and a deep love of the outdoors, led the nation in boating deaths per 100,000 registered boats in 2005 with 41, followed by Hawaii with 33.
Among states with larger boating populations — those with more than 100,000 registered boats — Maine, Kentucky and Louisiana stood out with death rates above 10 per 100,000 registrations.
But boaters died in almost every state and type of water, from coastal surf to lakes, ponds and rivers.
Although the number of reported Boating Accidents dropped from a national total of 6,419 in 2001 to 4,969 in 2005, the number of fatalities per year continues to hover around 700.
Among the findings from the GNS analysis and other sources:
Boater safety education appears to work. Death rates per 100,000 registered boaters in 2005 in states with no educational requirement were almost six times higher than in states with longstanding requirements.
About 42 percent of boaters surveyed in 2002 for the Coast Guard by an independent firm said they consumed alcohol either occasionally or almost always while boating. From 2001 to 2005, drinking remained a consistent factor in Boating Accidents, injuries and fatalities.
Capsizing and falling overboard are among the most deadly events for boaters. From 2001-05, both were leading events that ultimately led to death on the water.
The average age of boaters who died was 41. Boating safety officials say this backs their claim that most boaters killed were young and healthy enough to have survived had they properly prepared.
The most common types of watercraft involved in fatal accidents in 2005 were open motorboats (in 50 percent of deaths), canoes and kayaks (11 percent) and personal watercraft such as Jet Skis (9 percent). The number of personal watercraft on American waters has risen steadily, from 1.3 million in 2001 to 1.6 million in 2005. There are about 13 million boats of all types registered in the United States.
Poor judgment costly
Because boating typically involves family, friends and the expectation of a good time, accidents can be especially heartbreaking.
One July afternoon in 2006, Gil Smith went boating with his two small children on Carter Lake in Larimer County, Colo. Two-year-old Shay Smith was wearing a life vest sized for a much larger person, according to Larimer County law enforcement officials. That allowed the boy's head to sink beneath the surface when he fell off the tube he was riding behind the boat. Shay drowned.
Gil Smith landed in front of Judge David Williams on a charge of abuse.
"This is such a tragic situation that you could easily have avoided," Williams told Smith, who was sentenced to 60 weekend days in jail and five years probation.
Boating safety experts say it's crucial to make sure life vests are the proper size and are strapped on.
The Goeman family of Brainerd, Minn., also might have lost a child, were it not for the life jacket properly strapped onto their small son.
Tim Goeman said the family was fishing 20 years ago when his son, Joe, fell overboard. Thanks to the life jacket, the boy promptly bobbed to the surface.
"The outcome could have been a lot different," Goeman said. "I think of that every time I get into a boat now."
Asbury Park Press staff writer Kirk Moore and J.P. Eichmiller of Gannett News Service contributed to this story.
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