Aug 15, 2007 05:53 PM
Canadian Press
Boat operators have to be aware of the potential perils of a popular
summer water activity that has already claimed one young life and
injured two other children on Ontario lakes, police said today.
A recent collision involving two children riding behind a motorboat on
an inner tube on Rice Lake, near Peterborough, illustrates why the
boat's operator must remain vigilant, said Ontario police Sgt. Bob
Mineilly.
"With a tube, the operator of the vessel has a responsibility to be
aware of all the other vessels in his area," Mineilly said.
"If he turns his boat hard one way or another, that tube is going to
go outside and pick up speed."
That's precisely what happened Saturday when an 8-year-old boy and a
10-year-old girl slammed into the side of a stationary boat after the
boy's father, who was towing the pair on a tube behind his boat, was
forced to make a sharp turn.
Lance Hamilton, the owner of the stationary boat, said in an interview
Tuesday that he and his passengers were unable to get the attention of
the other boat's driver until it was too late.
"He finally hears us about 50 feet away, turns sharply to the left and
puts nothing but torque on the tube," said Hamilton, whose family
remains distraught about the accident.
After the collision, Hamilton's friend Dave Witherspoon jumped
overboard to help the youngsters, who were lying face down in the
water. Hamilton described his friend as a hero.
"I doubt very much that my children will ever tube from what they
witnessed, which is just fine with me," Witherspoon told a local
newspaper.
The girl was treated at a local hospital and released. The boy remains
in critical condition at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children with
serious head injuries.
On Tuesday, a 7-year-old girl died after being struck in the head with
a motorboat's tow bar that snapped while pulling tube riders on
Chandos Lake, south of Algonquin Provincial Park.
Sydney Robis was visiting from Stoney Creek. She was airlifted to
Kingston General Hospital, where she died.
It's vital for boat operators to check their equipment, including the
tow bar and the tow rope, to have a spotter on board and to leave
enough space in the vessel for tubers to get back on board, Mineilly
said.
"If you're the operator of the vessel you are responsible for your
actions, those of your crew, and the people being towed."
The incidents have rattled the region of cottage country near
Peterborough, where today's editorial in the Northhumberland Today
newspaper compared the activity to "being on a little red wagon being
towed by a speeding car."
"Even if you can clearly see that you are about to collide with
something – a rock, another watercraft – you are powerless to steer or
stop," the newspaper said.
Tubing, as its known, has long been fraught with danger.
A man from Brandon, Man., was killed while riding a tube in August
2006 when he was struck by the same boat that was towing him.
In July 2006, a man from Burlington was killed when the airborne "kite
tube" he was riding plunged from a height of about 10 metres into a
lake near Guelph.
The manufacturer of the kite tubes, which are designed to soar just
two metres above the water when used properly, later recalled the toys
after a series of serious injuries and two other deaths in the United
States.
