Child Overboard

medibird

Recruit
Joined
Jul 5, 2008
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5
Although I am new to powerboats, I spent several years with canoes and other human powered boats. One day, many years ago, a girlfriend and I took her 4- and 5-year old kids out on a small lake in York, PA in a four-person rented paddleboat. The lake is a drinking water holding reservoir so, while you can fish and use human-powered craft, you can't swim. Being a stickler for certain safety points, I always wear a PFD in a canoe or paddleboat (easy to hit my head on boat/rocks/logs) and of course the kids had them on. My girlfriend was a good swimmer and the type I's looked dorky to her so she didn't wear hers. We were facing forward and pedaling away while the kids faced backwards behind us. I glanced back almost constantly at first, but after a while I got complacent and stopped looking at the kids while we talked.

All of a sudden there is a splash and the 5-year old was in the water! He's splashing around, we're moving away from him and I'm wondering how do we get him out. Stop pedaling, don't panic, I'm drowning a child because I stopped watching them, don't panic. Think, me: vest, better boat handler, stronger pedaler; her: no vest, better swimmer, knows hardly anything about handling a watercraft - in the girlfriend goes (with tossed PFD.)

So I come about, get it to drift to them sideways. That was interesting with pedals and a bit of wind, but it went quickly. I notice that a few fisherman on the shore kept on fishing and didn't make a move to try to help. It was also interesting trying to keep the younger kid in the boat while "steering" into position because he wanted to go "play" with his mom and brother. We get the kid in the boat and then discover that pedal boats are not really designed to be boarded from in the water. More fun.

So, everyone is in the boat and we are doing a good job of being calm and not freaking out the kids by going ballistic. Trying to calmly explain to little ones like that how you don't just jump out of a boat into the water (didn't think to brief them on that point before we left the dock) and the idea of drowning while our hearts were still racing was interesting.

Being everyone was alright we decide to continue to finish the rest of our hour rental, keeping a sharp eye on the kids. To finish things off, a DNR CO pulls up a few minutes later in his powerboat and says that we were reported to be illegally swimming in the lake. After he finishes his short lecture we explain to him what happened. He asked if we needed any assistance and then off he went. It turned out the fisherman had seen us, decided we planned to be in the water and had reported us.

Since then, I have a new briefing for kids and adults that go out with me. Even though the adults sometimes roll their eyes I do it anyway. Stay low and IN the boat, wear your PFD, don't move/jump/dance in the canoe. I added talking with the kids during the days before and on the way to the water about water safety stuff.

Once again, a fun trip can turn serious in a heartbeat sometimes. I'm glad we were "lucky" and did some things right.

Jim S.
 
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