THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 20, 1995 TAG: 9505200508
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB HUTCHINSON, OUTDOORS EDITOR
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
Constantine Miante of Newport News was riding up front in a small, open skiff late last spring when Harold Gibson of Grafton the boat's operator, made a sharp turn.
Miante, 64, lost his balance and ended up in the waters of Hampton Roads, not far from the new Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel.
Gibson, 41, panicked and jumped in after his companion. Both drowned.
The double drowning occurred June 2.
Gibson might have saved his friend's life and certainly would have spared his own if only he had tossed a personal flotation device, a PFD, to Miante. With a rope attached to the PFD, Gibson could have hauled his buddy back to the boat.
Instead, the friends became statistics.
They became the fifth and sixth of what would become 14 drownings in Virginia last year.
There's double message here:
Considering the hundreds of thousands of people-hours spent on the water each year, boating is a surprisingly safe recreation in Virginia.
It would be a lot safer if people would just use their PFDs. It's a point which will be repeated countless times during the annual observation of National Safe Boating Week, which starts today and runs through Friday.
Of the 14 fatalities, only two victims were wearing approved life-saving devises, life vests or life preservers, as PFDs are popularly known.
And one lost his life because his PFD came off when his canoe capsized on Camp Shenandoah Spring Pond near Haywood in Madison County.
The PFD was not zipped up.
Another disconcerting part of the drownings report, compiled by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, shows that alcohol was known to be involved in four of the cases and could have been a factor in another. More grim examples that alcohol and water don't mix.
As I write this I think about how much time I spend in boats and how I never wear a PFD.
Why? I guess because I never think it could happen to me. I'm sure a lot of the 14 victims had the same attitude.
Besides, PFDs are hot and bulky. They get in your way when you're trying to have fun in a boat or when you're trying to catch fish.
All they can do is save your life.
Maybe, just maybe, though, all the hyperbole about practicing safe boating is getting through to some folks who may not be as falsely confident as I.
Game department statistics show that boating fatalities have been in a general decline in Virginia since the agency began keeping detailed records in 1984. Yet boating activities continue to increase. A record 216,000-plus boats were registered with the game department through Dec. 31, 1994.
Some 15 drowned in Virginia accidents in 1993, compared with 26 in 1989, the most since the agency began record-keeping.
However, 13 drowned in a single accident June 6, 1977, when the headboat Dixie Lee, loaded with 27 fishermen, capsized during a freak storm. The accident happened on the Chesapeake Bay off the Ocean View section of Norfolk.
Jeff Curtis, boating education coordinator for the game department, said he hoped the general downward trend would continue.
``We do everything possible to stress boating safety,'' Curtis said. ``I guess we're at least a little successful. When you look at the number of boats on the water and the tremendously varied boating conditions, it's really a pretty safe sport.
``But the bottom line is that it would be a lot safer if everyone in a boat would always wear a PFD. I suppose that some day they may be required, like seat belts. But it'll be hard to enforce, just like seat belts.
``A lot of people simply don't like to wear them and a lot of people just don't think an accident can happen to them. They're wrong. An accident, even a boating accident, can happen to anyone, as long as you're in a boat.'' ILLUSTRATION: Stafff illustration by John Earle
Staff graphic by John Earle
1994 fatal boating accidents.
[Date, body of water, What happened, age of victims, alcohol
involved, was PFD used ?.]
Source: U.S. Coast Guard.
For copy of graphic, see micrfilm.
by CNB