Doesn’t include all the the accidents that occur across the country, but the descriptions are always informative, and a little chilling.
25 fatal accidents reported
14 involved recreational kayakers, mostly in rivers with fast current or mild rapids.
Life vests were not worn in 15 of these incidents
7 deaths occurred while boating alone
Only 2 canoe accidents, but the accident on the class II section of the St Croix caught my attention. I run class II rapids all the time without a helmet - did it just last week, and I am not getting any younger.
Condolences to all that lost family members. Thanks to Charlie Walbridge for continuing to put this together.
I posted a video of my recent session surfing Hurricane Erin swells on a surf kayak/waveski site. As almost always, I had on my helmet and impact vest (which also gives some flotation assist). Maybe coincidentally, right after my video, someone posted from FLA that he didn’t understand why a waveskier would wear a helmet and PFD. It doesn’t happen often, but I have surf paddled enough year-round, alone mostly, to find that one or both of those pieces of equipment probably helped save my life. But, I don’t find much satisfaction or utility in expending energy to argue with some unknown paddler much these days over my equipment choices. Others on the board, however, jumped in and offered their own experiences where the equipment helped. More relevant to my approach these days, from one responder to the FLA dude posted – “Hey, you do you. I’ll do me.” Make your own choice and live and die by it. Short and to the point.
I used to see Charlie a lot in the 80s on the lower gauley. He’s still doing the accident report and active in securing access to the blackwater river in wv.
The accident report unfortunately hits pretty close to home for me. I don’t shy away from it. I know some of the victims, have paddled many of the places where fatalities have happened, and yes been on the river when some happened. Most of the people that died were way more skilled than me. The only thing that I can say is I haven’t had a fatality in the group I was paddling with.
I don’t think any of the fatalities thought I’m going to die doing this today. Your approach matters.
The fatalities that bother me the most aren’t the experienced paddlers but the folks that paddle without any regard to safety and claim they are experienced.
Some of us have paddled a long time but that doesn’t mean we are excluded from hazards. We know these are out there and try to account for them the best we can, with equipment, conditioning, knowledge and skills (development/training). Some just go forward with machismo. The former get weeded out by lesser numbers than the latter. Bit insensitive of me, but is that what the “Darwin Award” is about? There is no stopping that “game.”
The challenge as we get older - when do we cut back and how far do we cut back. Are we making decisions based on current skills and physical ability, or what we did when we were younger. Personally I haven’t cut back yet. I’ve always been pretty conservative anyway.
I have a paddling partner of mine… Pioneered paddling in Patagonia… Former US team… Icon of the sport. He’s still leading and guiding on big, scary Class V water in his mid 70’s. Of course he is leading on rivers that he pioneered or has 1Ds on, so here is that aspect of familiarity.
Hopefully paddlers have invested in skill development. In so many sports that are counter-intiutive it is just a matter of putting your body and equipment in the optimal position for them to perform. “It is all class III if you are on line”.
I think my skills are better now than when I was younger, so I’m more likely to be on the right line. Physical condition, not so much, which makes the consequences of a mistake worse. I’m not doing big scary stuff, but even in easier stuff sh*t happens.
I’m all about class III / IV play water on a sunny, warm day. I still run some Class V, but only those drops that I have run dozens of time before and know exactly where I need to be, and when.
