Local water-safety coordinators want boaters to know they are in more danger during the winter.
And locally, the most near-death accidents have been in the winter months, according to Joseph Ponder, park ranger and water safety coordinator for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Tenn-Tom Waterway Management Center.
In a recent incident where Lowndes County emergency response personnel spent much of Friday night and some of Saturday morning searching the Buttahatchee River for a Hamilton man and a 10-year-old boy, searchers found them and their bulldog uninjured along a bank around 1 a.m. Saturday.
Jeffrey Scott Roberts, 41, his 10-year-old nephew and the dog hit the waterway for a Friday afternoon of relaxation, but their canoe capsized some time Friday afternoon. Lowndes County Chief Deputy Greg Wright said it is believed the canoe went over some time after 3 p.m., which is when Roberts made a final “we’re doing fine” phone call to his mother.
“He kept calling me throughout the day to tell me it was going fine, but his phone was going dead because it got wet,” said J.J. Roberts, his mother, noting she began getting worried as the day turned to night. “I drove down to the Lawrence Bridge and saw his truck still there.”
With no way to contact him, she made the call to 911 dispatchers, and responders arrived at Lawrence Bridge in Caledonia about 6:45 p.m. to begin the rescue mission.
“Once the canoe flipped, they got to a bank and it started getting dark, so they started a fire and planned to stay there the rest of the night,” J.J. Roberts said. “My son knows the Buttahatchee like the back of his hand, and he is an ex-Marine. So they were never in any danger.”
Jeffrey Roberts and his nephew were fortunate. But Ponder warns that is not always the case, especially when navigating shallow waters on small flat-bottomed boats, which hunters prefer “because they can move around in shallow water better.”
“Three things can happen that cause us real concern,” Ponder said. “The water is colder causing hypothermia, and life jackets are often not readily accessible in the boat. The No. 1 thing is not wearing a life jacket in the first place.”
Ponder said incidents of people boating without life jackets happen far too often.
“It’s always an educational issue. In 2011, we have made over 60,000 personal contacts to get the water safety message out,” he said.
“In 2011, there were approximately 24 drownings in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mobile District that spans Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, a much higher number than usual. Fortunately, in 2010 and 2011 we had zero drownings in our area of responsibility.”
It is not known whether Roberts and the boy were wearing life jackets when the canoe capsized.
In the past five years, Columbus Fire and Rescue has responded to 15 incidents, including three drownings and two capsized boats. All boats are required to carry one wearable Coast Guard-approved life jacket for each person on board.
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