Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Boating Accidents Down in Georgia


First, the Good News
We often highlight the many accidents, arrests and other shenanigans that happen on the water after a busy weekend like the 4th of July, but this time we have good news to report from the state of Georgia.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday that boating accidents and boating under the influence arrests over the July 4th weekend dropped significantly compared to last year in their state. It's nice to hear about the good stuff once in a while.

Found Dead on a Boat
Okay, now that we’ve got the good news out of the way, we found it strange to see more than one story over the weekend with the words “found dead on boat” in the headline.

In one story, two Florida boaters were found dead on a cuddy cabin boat, which was anchored at Disappearing Island in Ponce Inlet. Carbon monoxide from an onboard generator may have been the cause according to wdbo.com.

In the other story (and you probably already saw this if you're a hockey fan), former Detroit Red Wing Bob Probert died while boating in Windsor, Ontario over the weekend. The initial breaking news headline announced that Probert was “found dead on a boat”, but eventually it was reported that he died after experiencing chest pains while boating with his family.

Too Young to Boat
There were, of course, many other incidents and accidents on the water over the weekend, but this was one we couldn't pass by without stopping and taking a closer look. A 7 year old in Virginia crashed a powerboat into a pier, killing his mother who was sitting on the bow. No news reports have been able to say why the 7 year old was operating the vessel while other adults were in the boat during this tragic accident, but Virginia has no minimum age requirement for operators of powerboats.

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