Scout Drowns

[LIBob]

On another thread we were discussing Safe Swim Defense(SSD), Safety Afloat (SA) and how they apply to a 20 ft wide swimming hole. Obviously SSD etc. were written with entirely different areas in mind.

 

It occured to me that maybe SSD and SA need to be fine tuned a bit.

Perhaps SSD should be amended to inlcude a different set of prcedures when swimming in a 20-foot wide swimming hole.

 

One way SSD/SA could should be made stricter would be to require, as a part of the SSD/SA training process, that trainees look at real life cases where scouts have drowned and identify which parts of SSD/SA were not being followed.

 

Let's begin with the eagle scout who drowned last month off of Plymouth Harbor. (The article makes the SA violations kind of obvious.)

 

Kingston Eagle Scout drowns in Plymouth boating accident

E-mail|Link May 12, 2010

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/05/13/kingston_man_19_drowns_off_plymouth/

and

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/05/two_men_rescued.html

 

A teenager from Kingston, an Eagle Scout who dreamed of becoming a firefighter, drowned in the waters off Plymouth Harbor early this morning after the 15-foot recreational boat he was in took on water and sank.

 

David Hanson, 19, was unconscious when the crew on a Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopter spotted him floating in the harbor around 2:30 a.m. today. Hanson was pulled from the water and rushed to Jordan Hospital in Plymouth, where he was pronounced dead.

 

Hanson and the boat's owner, 20-year-old Wayne Carlson, both were wearing life jackets, but lacked experience boating on the ocean at night, according to Hanson's father, Keith Hanson.

 

They shouldnt have been out there in the boat, the father said in a telephone interview today. It was lack of judgment, and two inexperienced guys who shouldnt have been out there. Its like playing Russian roulette.

 

He said he spoke with Carlson at the hospital early this morning and Carlson told him the two had not been drinking or doing anything otherwise illegal, but that they exercised poor judgment in taking the boat out at dark.

 

Keith Hanson said his family is grieving for an adventurous teenager who was told countless times that he should not have been out on the boat at that time, but who couldnt turn down an adventure with a close friend.

 

They were good friends that did a lot together, the father said. Its hard not to tell [a teenager] not to do certain things.

 

and

 

A 19-year-old emergency medical technician who had dreams of becoming a firefighter drowned in the waters off Plymouth Harbor early yesterday morning after the 15-foot recreational boat he was in took on water and sank.

 

Coast Guard crews raced to the scene and rescued the boats owner, who was clinging to a buoy, but could not locate 19-year-old David Hanson of Kingston. A Jayhawk helicopter spotted him just before 3 a.m., roughly 3 1/2 hours after the boat started taking on water, and directed a 47-foot Coast Guard boat to his location. He was unconscious and was transported to Jordan Hospital in Plymouth, where he was pronounced dead.

 

Hansons father, Keith, said yesterday that the family was grieving for an adventurous teenager who was told countless times that he should not have been out on the boat after dark, but who could not turn down a journey with a close friend.

 

They were good friends that did a lot together, Keith Hanson said yesterday. Its hard not to tell [a teenager] not to do certain things.

 

Hanson said he spoke with the boat owner, 20-year-old Wayne Carlson, at the hospital early yesterday morning. Carlson told him that the two had not been drinking or doing anything otherwise illegal, but that they exercised poor judgment in taking the boat out at dark.

 

They shouldnt have been out there in the boat, Keith Hanson said. It was lack of judgment and two inexperienced guys who shouldnt have been out there. Its like playing Russian roulette.

 

State Police assigned to the office of Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz have concluded that foul play was not involved.

 

The two men had apparently left Kingston Harbor and were heading to Plymouth Harbor when the boat started taking on water about 2 miles east of their destination, authorities said.

 

Carlson put out a distress call at 11:22 p.m. Tuesday, alerting authorities that the boat was taking on water, according to the Coat Guard and the Plymouth harbormaster. Around 1 a.m. yesterday, a worried friend of the men waiting for them at Plymouth Harbor told authorities about their route, helping rescue crews narrow their search.

 

At 2 a.m., a Coast Guard boat found Carlson clinging to the buoy. The Jayhawk spotted Hanson about a half hour later.

 

Both wore lifejackets but apparently suffered from the cold of the night. Air temperature was 46 degrees with winds of about 5 miles per hour, and water temperature was 57 degrees.

 

Keith Hanson said Carlson told him that he was able to grab a buoy and that Hanson was alongside him, but at one point he seemed to be swallowing water and showed symptoms of hypothermia.

 

He just kind of slipped away, Hansons father said. Were at a loss for words.

 

Hanson was about to graduate from Massasoit Community College and was on the civil service list to become a Kingston firefighter, his father said. He drove an ambulance for Exodus Mountain Inc. of Brockton and was preparing to take a paramedic exam. He also worked as a security guard at the Hanover Mall.(This message has been edited by LIBob)

[LIBob]

I have read several stories and accounts of the drowning of 12-year old scout Kenny "cookie" Frazier and have not found any reference made to lifeguards, the buddy system or areas roped off by swimming ability.

 

http://www.iosconews.com/articles/2008/07/30/news/news02.txt

Youth drowns in Lake Huron

by John Morris

 

EAST TAWAS - A camping trip up north turned to tragedy Friday for a group of Boy Scouts and their young urban guests when a 12-year-old boy from Lansing drowned in Lake Huron.

 

The incident occurred on the southeast side of Tawas Point State Park in the parks designated swimming area.

The Iosco County Sheriffs Department received a report at about 3:56 p.m. of a missing child in the water who had disappeared below the surface, according to Deputy Sgt. Charles Linneman.

 

Emergency crews and beach- goers at the day use area of the state park searched for the boy in and along the designated swimming area.

 

 

 

 

The victim, identified by police as Kenneth Frasier, 12, of Lansing, was recovered near a designated swimming buoy at about 5:30 p.m., an hour and a half after the initial call for help, after his body was spotted by crews aboard a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter from Detroit.

 

Crews aboard the Oscoda Township Water Rescue Team vessel immediately began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) while the watercraft traveled to a beach landing area near the state parks pavilion, where other emergency crews were waiting.

 

see also

http://www.connectmidmichigan.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=165243

 

http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2213437

 

http://www.tncp.net/Articles/tabid/1800/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1796/Default.aspx

 

and

http://blog.mlive.com/bctimes/2008/08/police_identify_tawas_point_dr.html

[Beavah]

Nah, I don't think yeh need a whole bunch of special case rules for SSD/SA. The point is that yeh get Qualified Supervision who knows how to set up safety for that particular event.

 

In the accident that you describe above, Safety Afloat did not apply, because it was a couple of adults going out boating together. The title "Scout Drowns" is also a bit off, eh? Safety Afloat is a BSA program feature, which is designed to help adults set up a safe boating experience for children. While some aspects of it have application to all boating, many don't. We don't look for "Qualified Supervision" for experienced adults.

 

There's another problem with relyin' on popular press accounts to do accident analysis, eh? That's why yeh have real people who understand boating and accidents, like da Coast Guard, who do these things professionally. I usually wait for those reports.

 

But I'll bite.

 

(1) Qualified Supervision - does not apply.

(2) Physical Fitness - no reason to assume they were not fit for boating.

(3) Swimming Ability - the man was an Eagle Scout and therefore had passed this test.

(4) Personal Flotation - was worn by both men.

(5) Buddy system - no "buddy boat" was present. In this case, that would have made a difference, eh? That's not a common thing for adult recreational boating, however; in fact, it's almost never done except for PWCs, even when a camp is running somethin' like Waterskiing. Had their boat been 5 feet larger, it wouldn't have been expected for Safety Afloat either.

(6) Skill proficiency - they should have met da requirements for Motorboating MB. They seem to have followed proper emergency procedures for the Mayday. If yeh read da requirements for motorboating MB, there's no reason to believe that the men didn't meet all of 'em. None of those requirements would have prevented this accident.

(7) Float Plan - The two men left a float plan with a friend on shore that was useful in the rescue.

(8) Equipment - Until we have da results of the accident investigation, we won't know da nature of the failure that caused the boat to sink. One might fault 'em on equipment on the principle that "if something went wrong, it must be your fault", but that isn't always the case. For night boating, I would have had a strobe on my lifejacket, but it's unclear whether that would have sped the rescue or not.

(9) Discipline - doesn't really apply to adults, but the men were not under the influence and there's no reason to believe that they weren't exercising reasonable prudence.

 

So da only speculation we might come up with is that a buddy boat in this case might have saved the day, even though that's a non-standard practice.

 

Me, I'll wait for da professionals to finish their accident report, and spend my time prayin' for the young man and his family.

 

Beavah

 

[LIBob]

True when David Hanson drowned he was not on a scouting event nonetheless he was a scout and he did drown.

 

Press articles often leave out details but the boston globe articles make it pretty clear there was a breakdown in discipline (SA point #9), and that they did not have the necessary skill porficeincy (SA point #6) to be boating at night

 

Hanson and the boat's owner, 20-year-old Wayne Carlson, both were wearing life jackets, but lacked experience boating on the ocean at night, according to Hanson's father, Keith Hanson.

 

They shouldnt have been out there in the boat, the father said in a telephone interview today. It was lack of judgment, and two inexperienced guys who shouldnt have been out there. Its like playing Russian roulette.

 

Note also that SA point #1 requires an adult 21 or older, and point #5 requires a "buddy boat" as well. I cna easily imaigine those two points being violated when it comes to motor boats. In fact I'm not sure I would enforce them on a non-scouting event.

 

Nonetheless, Hanson and his friend took a boat trip that appears to ahve violated 4 points of SA and Hanson died as a result.

[Beavah]

True when David Hanson drowned he was not on a scouting event nonetheless he was a scout and he did drown.

 

Well, he once was a scout . But at the time of his death, he was a 20 year old man.

 

Can I ask why yeh feel the need to malign an Eagle Scout's memory after such a tragedy by goin' out of your way to try to find fault with the man? How do yeh feel that's in keeping with the Scout Oath and Law?

 

Discipline is somethin' we provide for children, eh? I can't see where yeh can make a claim that there was a breakdown in discipline between the two adults in this case. That would be somethin' like not following the captain's directions on the part of the crewman, and there's no evidence of that.

 

Yeh have da words of a grieving father to suggest lack of experience, but da words of a grieving father are highly suspect, eh? That's the nature of grieving. They were on their float plan, navigating adequately. If yeh read SA, it specifies that the skill requirements for motorboating are those of Motorboating MB. Right there in bold, eh? (b) Powerboat operators must be able to meet requirements for the Motorboating merit badge or equivalent. . So there's no reason to believe that they did not meet the written requirements of Safety Afloat for skill proficiency.

 

And we'll leave aside da notion that two 20-year-old adults need a 21-year-old to accompany them. Besides being foolish, all it would have gotten yeh in this case is another victim.

 

Which brings us back to buddy boat, which we both recognize is not a common practice in adult motorboating.

 

So we're back to why do yeh want to go so far out of your way to find fault with one of our Eagle Scouts who suffered such a tragedy at a young age? What do yeh feel it accomplishes?

 

Beavah

 

 

 

[Buffalo Skipper]

LIBob, first let me say that it is tragic anytime someone drowns. As a Scouter, Boy Scouter and avid boater, I am especially mindful of situations involving current or former scouts and leaders. However, I am inclined to side with Beavah on this one.

 

This was neither a scouting activity nor did it involve youth, so it is difficult to assess a comparison to SA. I agree that a second boat would have been fine, but outside of BSA, that concept is taught no where that I am aware.

 

Not to refute the grieving father, but his statement is emotional and taken somewhat out of context. Sure boating on the open ocean comes with hazards and is dangerous, especially at night, but Plymouth Harbor is not the open ocean. Like Beavah says, wait to see what the accident report says.

 

The man who drowned was 19 and he was very capeable of making a decision to do what he felt was a reasonably safe endeavor. Obviously something went wrong, tragically. But they call them accidents. Do we try to change the driving laws or revise every high school driving class or up the licensing requirements of teenagers every time a teenager dies in a traffic accident?

 

With all that, let me reiterate that it is tragic that someone, in this case an Eagle Scout, drowned in a boating accident. But let's not go pointing fingers trying to second guess what may have happened here.

[LIBob]

I'm not trying to point fingers but rather to look for wasy to raise awareness and find ways to prevent these sorts of things.

 

Scouts drown every year often at scouting events and typically (but not always) it turns out that at least one point of SSD/SA was not being followed.

 

17 year old Texas Eagle Scout Hayden O'Brien was swimming in a guarded public pool without a buddy.

 

Hayden O'Brien, son of Wanda and Tim, was in a swimming pool "accident". It appeared he was trying to hold his breath as long as possible and passed out at the bottom. He had been seeing how long he could stay under water throughout the day so it didn't catch the lifeguards' attention right away.

http://breadoflifeprayerlist.blogspot.com/2008/06/hayden-obrien.html

 

They managed to revive him but he died two days later.

http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/22814094.html

http://itemonline.com/local/x212547991/Teen-pulled-from-swimming-pool-dies?keyword=topstory

 

These stories are sad, but if we learn from them, maybe we can prevent similar things from happening to our own scouts. Certainly if we read enough of these stories we lessen the likelihood that someone wil play fast and lose with SSD/SA rules.(This message has been edited by LIBob)

[sst3rd]

For crying out loud, just run the program. It works. Bringing up these stories makes no sense.

 

sst3rd

[CalicoPenn]

The idea is good - provided the case studies being used are from BSA activities where there were parts of SA or SSD that weren't being followed.

 

None of the three (thus far) examples used, though, would meet that criteria.

 

In the first case, we have two adults, one of whom happened to have been an Eagle Scout (and as I've mentioned many times, Eagle Scout is a "hook" for the news media, whether what has occured is related to the Boy Scouts or not), taking a boat out into a harbor at night and, subsequent to an event causing the boat to take on water, drowned. The article doesn't provide a lot of detail on what happened to the boat other than it sank. We have a grieving father who claims that lack of experience was at play, but we don't know for a fact if the pilot of the boat, who appears to be the one that survived, is really that unexperienced. Regardless, nothing in this incident has any application to SA since this was not a Boy Scout outing.

 

The second example may have some promise but we have a serious lack of information on what procedures were being used at this public swimming hole by the Scout leaders. There is no information reported that suggests that the Scouts weren't following SSD so it is just as reasonable to make an assumption that SSD was being used. One of the first things that should be taught is SA and SSD is that following these programs will not guarantee that the Scouts will be 100% safe. At summer camps and high adventure bases with water activities, we practice for those times when some thing goes wrong. A drowning can happen in an instant - I could run a buddy check one minute and see that every one is accounted for and have a Scout slip under water and drown the next.

 

The third incident is apparently at a public pool, or a private guarded pool, and appears to have happened during open swim hours. Again, also not a Scout activity (the person who drowned just happened to be an Eagle Scout - headline hook). I spent most of my waking hours at the public pool in the summer when I was a kid - I rarely had a buddy in the sense of the BSA SSD system. At times I was with friends, at times I was alone. But always, there were guards on duty. Violation of SSD? Nope - because SSD applies to Scouting activities, not what people do on their own time.

 

 

[LIBob]

Calico your post makes a lot of sense.

(Note however that I teach my son to use the buddy sysem and follow other scout procedure even when swimming or boating at non-scouting events.)

 

Kenny Frazier did drown at a scouting event and the articles I've read make no menion one way or another of things like "buddy-check" and "lifeguards."

 

It could of course be slopy reporting but those words are conspicuously absent from sentences like

The Iosco County Sheriffs Department received a report at about 3:56 p.m. of a missing child in the water who had disappeared below the surface, according to Deputy Sgt. Charles Linneman.

 

Emergency crews and beach- goers at the day use area of the state park searched for the boy in and along the designated swimming area.

 

 

more in a moment(This message has been edited by LIBob)

[Eagle92]

Ll,

Welcome to the forums. I must also echo SST's comments on what is the point of bringing these articles up? Now I applaud that you are trying to bring awareness of the importance of following SSD and SA, but the cases you are using no not apply or do not provide enough information for true comment.

 

That said, I strongly believe in SA and SSD. But BSA sometimes do not follow the Buddy Boat portion of SSD, i.e. summer camp programs.

[LIBob]

Thank you Eagle.

 

It's true that some of the stories I have posted are scout drownings that occured at non-scouting events. I feel these are still germaine because part of scoutings mission is to teach scouts to be prepared and be safe even outside of scouting events.

 

A scout who learns gun safety at camp should sill exercise gun safety on his own time no?

 

 

Anyway here's a story of a scout who drowned on a scouting boat trip. From what I can tell the only aspect of SA they group violated was that their float plan failed to realize the river was to high and too fast.

 

That's a tough call to make. How does a person know what constituties "too fast?" I personally don't even know what guidelines to use.

 

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1213239355128611.xml&coll=7

 

. . . Cornell said La Vielle had taken both the Scout-sponsored "Safety Afloat" training and "Safe Swim Defense" training. And in the 14 years he's been a Scout leader for Troop 107, La Vielle had taken his young charges canoeing on the Clackamas several times. His own son -- now 26 -- had made the trip, and recently remembered it as one of his best times as a Boy Scout.

 

But Saturday was the group's first time this season, a year in which the river is cold and about four times its normal volume.

 

Conditions on the river are so extreme, said Deputy Mitch Beyer of the Clackamas County sheriff's dive team, that he sent his people to Blue Lake earlier this week rather than conduct training on the river itself.

 

Still, the Scouts chose to go ahead with their day trip.

 

La Vielle was part of a group of six adults and three Scouts, including Finn, a sixth-grader. The group put in at Barton Park and planned to take out at Clackamette Park.

 

Just above the Interstate 205 bridge, in the rapids at the water intake and pump station, the canoe containing La Vielle and Finn went over around 5:15 p.m., dumping them into the frigid water. Both clung to the canoe and rode it downstream.

 

"We were fine," La Vielle said. "I was one side and Finn was on the other -- we were both holding on."

 

La Vielle remembers that they were just about to make it to safety when the current swept them downstream.

 

While his memory of the events is still foggy, La Vielle said he remembers grabbing a rope from a throw bag that someone in another boat apparently tossed to him "but there was no one at the other end. They couldn't hold us."

 

After they floated under the bridge, another canoe from their group came alongside. Both he and Finn grabbed onto the other canoe, again, he on one side, Finn on the other. A woman in the other canoe was able to briefly grab Finn's life jacket around the collar and hold on to him.

 

Then, La Vielle said, Finn cried out, "Ow! Ow! My legs," as if they were striking underwater obstructions.

 

"He got snatched off the canoe and went under the water," La Vielle said.

 

While rescuers came quickly, they couldn't save Finn. They eventually found his body 6 feet under the surface in about 10 feet of water. A rope from a throw bag -- it may have been one he had with him in his canoe, or one that was thrown to him by would-be rescuers -- was wrapped around his wrist. It held him underwater and he drowned.

 

The Clackamas is far from the only river running very high right now. Because of the high snowpack, rivers throughout the Northwest are running higher and faster than usual, some at historic levels. In fact, they haven't been this high -- and, in some spots, this dangerous -- since 1999, said Tom Herrett, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

 

 

 

[Twocubdad]

How is this different from the old SSD video? You know,with the creepy, Rod Serling guy that pops in from the side of the screen with the omnious sounding voice to critique what happened?

 

While the idea has merit, I agree with da Beav that media reports aren't of much use, even for forum discussion. Whether or not buddy checks were occurring regularly or if swim areas had been designated properly means nothing to most reporters and editors.

[LIBob]

Hey twocub,

 

I wouldn't know anything about the old SSD video because I have not seen it.

 

I DO know that a quarter century ago. when I worked on a BSA waterfront we told every camper "Scouts drown every year. It's usually only one or two but that is one or two too many. And yet never, in the 75-tear history of scouting has a scout ever died at waterfront that follows BSA safety procedures."

 

We'd pause for a moment and then add "Think about it. One or two every single year versus zero in 75 years. This stuff really works. It really does save lives and it saves lives every year."

 

Anyway, you are right about the limited value of media stories. As I have noted, and others have noted, and now you have noted, the fact that a media article does not mention buddies is not proof that no buddy system was in place.

 

Still, Eagle Scout David Hanson knew BSA safe boating procedures and neglected to follow them. The result was his death. Despite the limits of media articles, that much is clear.

 

Eagle Scout Hayden O'Brien must have been trained in the importance of having a swim buddy. Nonetheless he chose to swim without one. As a result he was underwater for 3 full minutes before anyone noticed him missing.

 

Point being media stories (despite their much discussed limits) sometimes do yield interesting and worthwhile facts.

 

Sometimes they even reveal the exact SSD/SA violations that led to death. (As they did in the cases of David Hanson, and Hayden O'Brien.

 

 

 

(This message has been edited by LIBob)

[LIBob]

So anyway it seems some conditions have been placed on this thread

 

Condition 1:

If a scout was taught safe swim and safe boating procedures and chose to ignore them, the drowning "doesn't count" unless it happened at a scouting event.

 

Condition 2:

If a media article does not mention the specific violation of SSD/SA that occurred, then no such violation occurred.

 

I'm not sure what the purpose of such conditions are, but what the hey. I will cheerfully endeavor to meet the conditions placed upon me.

 

 

 

Here's a Safety Afloat condition I routinely violate:

Regardless of how large or small a vessel is all passengers must wear a PFD at all times. Honestly if we are on a Ferry boat, large fishing boat (aka party boat) or large sightseeing boat I just go with the flow.

 

Apparently (notice the qualifier) a Staten Island SM did things the Bob way, and the result was 14-year-old scout Nicholas Johs died off Cape May NJ as his father and friends watched on in horror. The fact that passengers threw Johs a life preserver tells me he probably (notice the qualifier) was not wearing a PFD.

 

 

. . . .Vessels from the Coast Guard, State Police and beach patrols in Cape May Point and Cape May looked for the man overboard. Others scoured the beaches. Fire companies from Cape May Point and Cape May were joined by Cape May Point Public Works, Cape May Point State Park personnel and a New Jersey State park ranger in the search. A dive team from Town Bank Volunteer Fire Company was ready to go into the water. Cape May and Lower Township police also went to the beach and to Schellengers Landing.

 

More than four years ago, April 30, 2005, a Boy Scout from New York fell off the Whale Watcher II during an excursion. Nicholas Johs, 14, a member of Boy Scout Troop 26 of Staten Island, was not able to grab a life preserver thrown to him and quickly sank from view as his horrified father and childhood friends looked on. An autopsy found he survived a propeller strike and died from drowning.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/article_13602b52-56ab-11de-8240-001cc4c03286.html