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Each boating fatality is a personal tragedy




TWRA officers conduct a recovery search after a boating accident. TWRA

The press releases arrive almost routinely from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency:

A young kayaker drowned on Percy Priest Lake.

An elderly fisherman is missing after his boat capsized on Pickwick.

A body is recovered from the Duck River.

Last year, 27 such fatality reports were issued, approaching the grim state record of 31 set a few years ago. Already this year nine deaths have occurred, with the peak boating season just getting started.

They arrive so frequently that you become almost calloused. You scan through them, noting names, ages, locations and other details about the accident.

You tend to forget that each statistic represents a terrible personal tragedy. A lost life. The lives of loved ones devastated.

There are no statistics for heartbreak.

I almost lost my long-time fishing buddy, Bob Sherborne, to a drowning several years ago. It happened in a split-second, in a single moment of carelessness.

Sherborne and I came in after a chilly morning of fishing on Old Hickory Lake. While I went to get the trailer, Sherborne puttered back out to adjust the motor’s idle.

When he leaned over, the motor suddenly revved, the boat lunged and spun, and Sherborne was thrown overboard.

With the engine still running, the boat chugged away, leaving Sherborne stranded and struggling in the deep, cold water. He had removed his life jacket when we got to the dock.

Bundled in heavy clothing, he had gone under once before a nearby boat – the only one in sight – rushed to his rescue.

If it hadn’t been there, and if the boater hadn’t acted quickly, Sherborne would have drowned.

His survival was an absolute miracle.

He was fortunate. Lots of others aren’t.

The harrowing experience serves as a reminder of how quickly an accident can happen, even to an experienced boater. On the water, there is no margin for error. The first mistake could be the last mistake.

Sherborne, for example, always wears a life jacket. But he took it off that morning after reaching the dock to drop me off, and didn’t bother putting it back on when he puttered back out for a minute.

That one little mistake almost cost him his life.

A devoted husband and daddy of two precious little girls – and now a grandpa – my buddy Bob almost became another name in another press release: “A fisherman drowned on Old Hickory Lake when he was thrown from his boat …”

Another statistic in a terrible tally.