I see SUP all the time with no PFD in evidence.
I hope to never come across a body…
like I’ve posted before, pfd use is cultural- sups and fisherman and folks who swim in the river are more immune from drowning. Tubers wear theirs, but just leave "em unfastened to help eliminate the tan lines.
@kayamedic said:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.news-leader.com/amp/690933002
Interesting.
That’s a hard one to plan ahead for. Guess I’ll cross karst rivers off my to-do list.
@Rookie said:
And PFDs save more than just lives. On Friday I took a SUP class, never having been on one. No idea how it >happened, but I did a face plant on the board. What saved my drysuit from being bloodied was the cushioning on >the front of my PFD. Kept me from full impact. A bruised or broken nose and bloodied lip sure would have been >embarrassing…
They can also give sharks something to think about before swallowing. Glad you didn’t hurt or embarrass yourself, other than admitting you took an SUP class. 
@qajaqman
The SUP class was interesting and fun. I just wish I had been smart enough schedule it on another day, not right after a seven-hour coastal kayaking class. Maybe that’s what led to the face plant?
sadly, if you frequently paddle very popular whitewater rivers that are class IV and V then you are likely to encounter “river trauma”. WW paddle sport definately has inherent risk. I just stopped counting when I got up to six or seven connections on the wv accident list. I witnessed one fatality, parked my car next to another one of the victims, lost a friend and boss at a river company where I worked, two victims belonged to the same paddling club as I, and at least three or four additional incidents I know the people involved with the rescue attempt (mostly fellow paddlers of the victim). Most of these accidents happen in places I’m familiar with. So all this stuff hits pretty close to home for me. I’ve taken a few folks to the emergency room for non life threatening stuff. I feel pretty fortunate having only suffered a dislocated shoulder (flipped over in the base of a small falls) and seal launching over my finger (which was pretty severely dislocated).
As my skill, fitness and health has declined with age and inactivity, the amount of risk I’m willing to assume has also decreased. Many of the paddlers on the incident list were far more skilled than I ever was. I live in close proximity to several runs I’ve never done- lower meadow, mill creek below ansted, and manns creek (although I ran the shuttle for the first successful descent). So even back in the day there were things I wasn’t willing to try. The goal is always to come back alive regardless of where you paddle.
@Canadice Clipper said:
@string said:
As the population density grows.I would respectfully counter your theory that population (density?) growth is responsible for the increase in paddling deaths. I would propose that those groups that are responsible for the population growth in the U.S. are not representative of the growth in paddlers entering the sport. The vast majority of paddlers in my area of NY (an area I consider quite diverse) look unfortunately too much like me. The 200 plus Meet-Up paddling group to which I belong also bears that out. I think that the problem lies in older, out-of-shape (often obese) baby-boomers venturing out on the water with no conditioning or training in the sport and is at least partially responsible for the statistics.
Interesting thought. You likely have only 20 of those 200 that actually kayak with any frequency. Somewhere in the ACA statistics it breaks down the stats by age. I forgot the numbers.
Either way raw numbers need to be compared to the total exposure. Exposure must be measured by number of hours, boats , people, etc…
@Rookie said:
True, it’s a beautiful bridge. I’ve driven across it and it’s those grated lanes that are spooky because I can see the Straits as I drive over them.
Eyes on the traffic please.
@Overstreet said:
Interesting thought. You likely have only 20 of those 200 that actually kayak with any frequency. Somewhere in the ACA statistics it breaks down the stats by age. I forgot the numbers.Either way raw numbers need to be compared to the total exposure. Exposure must be measured by number of hours, boats , people, etc…
Regrettably, paddling deaths pale in comparison to the opiod crisis, suicides, and auto deaths, so I doubt there will ever be that level of analysis. Meanwhile, con permiso, we can but theorize and paddle on. And those who prefer not to hear about such topics, (such as the OP) can avoid perusing posthumus paddling posts. Time for another verse from CWDH…………….
@Candice Clipper You are out of line in the above snarky bit,"(such as the OP)". This thread has been about what may contribute to paddling deaths. You chose to expand the universe to things other than that and take a swipe at the OPer on the way out.
I got a flag on this, but decided to say it here.
@Celia said:
@Candice Clipper You are out of line in the above snarky bit,"(such as the OP)". This thread has been about what may contribute to paddling deaths. You chose to expand the universe to things other than that and take a swipe at the OPer on the way out.
I got a flag on this, but decided to say it here.
I am out of line by citing paddling death statistics from the ACA and defending their apparent lack of granularity to Overstreet? And the title of the original post is "Really? Do we really need hear about every paddling death? " I stand corrected and my apologize for my apparent lack of sensitivity.
US population has only increased 30% since 1989. Human powered watercraft deaths have increased by nearly 100%. Rise in death rates has nothing to do with “population density” and everything to do with popularity and the proliferation of cheap watercraft being sold by stores and rented by establishments that offer little or no guidance how and where they should safely be used…
CC, I’m fairly insensitive myself. I never noticed you being not sensitive.
It’s hard to comment on any death subjectively without appearing insensitive. Don’t sweat it, CC.
Except the Darwin Award winners.
In the case of many, and no doubt most drowning deaths of paddlers it is easy to identify something the victim did wrong. But certainly not always. There have been many drowning deaths of expert level paddlers on challenging rapids they had successfully paddled many times before. Of course, most of these occur on Class V water. But there have been plenty of paddler fatalities that have occurred on easier water where the victim did nothing wrong.
There was a famous fatality that occurred with a person taking a beginner whitewater kayak clinic at the Nantahla Outdoor Center many years ago. That occurred on the Tuckasegee River which is a dam controlled river that is a pretty straightforward Class II run making it quite suitable for beginning whitewater instruction. This occurred at a time when whitewater kayaks tended to be much longer with pointy ends.
I may be a bit fuzzy on some of the finer details but if memory serves I believe the clinic included 8-10 students. I know there were two instructors who were expert level paddlers. Everyone was wearing a PFD, everyone was reasonably fit, the water level was moderate, the water was warm, and there was expert level emergency assistance immediately at hand. Virtually ideal conditions. The clinic participants were taking turns lining up and running a chute that dropped a couple of feet into a downstream V with fast current and large eddies on either side of the downstream V. All but one of the clinic participants had run this uneventfully. The last one lined up on the chute perfectly, ran the drop, and the boat and paddler disappeared. Despite immediate rescue attempts, neither the boat or paddler could be immediately located, and the paddler drowned.
What was unknown to all was that some malefactor had disposed of an industrial conveyor belt in the river upstream at some point in time. One end of this had snagged on an underwater rock right at the ledge forming the drop, probably during lower water between releases. The free end of the belt was whipping around in the fast current beneath the drop but still beneath the surface and not visible. Two instructors and all but one student paddled over it without incident. When the last student ran the drop, the nose of his kayak dipped beneath the surface just enough to become lassoed by the belt as it rose as close to the surface as its tether allowed. The belt wrapped around the paddler’s body preventing a wet exit and the current provided enough force to allow the belt to pull boat and paddler to the river bottom.
As Tony pointed out, most of us who have paddled whitewater for some time have at least one friend or acquaintance who has drowned. I have been fortunate enough to have not lost any close friends on a river but I know plenty of paddling buddies who have, and on three separate occasions I have paddled a whitewater run on which one or more persons drowned on the same day. Sometimes even a very well-prepared and knowledgeable individual has a momentary lapse, due to inattention or being tired. on moving water that costs them their life Our small local paddling club lost an experienced paddler on the upper Tellico River years ago. This did not even occur on a rapid, but just on a section of moving flat water between rapids. The victim was looking back upstream talking to another paddler, drifted into a strainer, capsized and was entrapped. I have heard of incidents in which swimming boaters drowned on moving water after becoming entangled in mono-filament fishing line which was completely invisible.
Moving water has immense power. When we throw various obstacles into the mix, some of which may be totally invisible to a boater, paddling on moving water takes on a certain randomness that can claim the life of even a very experienced boater. I think that is a fact that people who paddle moving water simply have to accept.
Search is on for a missing kayaker on Lake Champlain. Please tell me his group didn’t paddle away from him when he said he was going to swim to shore without a life jacket, because that’s what it sounds like. :#
http://coastguardnews.com/uscg-search-on-lake-champlain/2018/07/03/
A good Samaritan reported the adrift kayak to Coast Guard watchstanders at around 7:30 p.m. prompting the search.
The man was confirmed missing by a separate correlating report from a group he was kayaking with that stated his kayak had capsized and he planned to swim to shore.
The group did not see him return to shore and he was not wearing a life jacket when they last saw him.