Dylan Darland,7, was boating on Lake Powell Sunday 24 July 2016. He was with his father, Jeff Darland (an off road racer) and Dylan’s brother. Also along was Dylan’s father’s girlfriend, and her son.
Just out of Bullfrog Marina, their boat struck something (later thought to have been a sandbar). On impact, all three boys were ejected. The other two boys were okay, but Dylan Darland was critically injured by the propeller. He lost his lower right leg and has since lost his right hand.
The ever present Good Samaritan’s in these accidents rushed Dylan and his father to a local medical clinic. Dylan was life flighted from there to Phoenix Children’s Hospital.
Several off-road racers immediately helped various family members assemble in Phoenix and get back to town the next day. The story is best told by race-deZert (RDG). RDG is also the source of images of Dylan on this page.
The Darland’s extended off-road racing family has been a tremendous blessing to them since the accident. Beyond immediate help and prayers, racers have conducted various fundraisers and kept the cause in front of their group. Read More →
Good Samaritans in Minnesota have came to the rescue in at least two different Circle of Death boating accidents so far this year.
Neighbors were recently honored for saving Lora Sweet, 51, and Timothy Bahama, 48, both of Brainerd Minnesota from a 15 April 2016 Circle of Death accident on Rice Lake. They were in a 17 foot tiller steered fishing boat powered by a 40 horsepower outboard. Lora and Timothy were both flung from the boat into cold 44 degree water about 6pm, the boat went into the Circle of Death, and ran over Sweet more than once. News reports sway she was struck by the motor / propeller twice. WCCO 4News at Noon told the story of the award ceremony on 27 September 2016.
Rescuers Honored in MN
Neighbors Honored in MN boat accident rescue
The video above appears to show a tiller steered Lund boat.
The second pair of Good Samaritans, Brian Bahr and Kyle Bourasa, sprang to the rescue this past Sunday, 24 October 2016 on Bald Eagle Lake near the town of White Bear Lake. They pulled two men from 50 degree water while the victim’s boat was in the Circle of Death. KSTP ABC News5 ran a great article and video telling of the rescue.
The video above also appears to show a tiller steered Lund boat, this one with a Mercury Marine outboard motor.
Thousands of boaters owe their lives to similar Good Samaritans around the country and world. We thank all of them and encourage the rest of you to be prepared and willing to spring into action should the need arise. Boat propeller accidents would be more frequent and more severe without your help.
In May 2013 Timothy Clippard of Missouri was killed in a boating accident on Kentucky Lake during a bass fishing tournament. His fishing partner piloted the Ranger bass boat as they passed under a large bridge on the way back to weigh in. The 225 horsepower Yamaha outboard motor struck a barely submerged bridge support beam hidden by high water. The outboard motor broke off the back of the boat, flipped into the boat, and with the propeller still rotating under power, fatally struck Tim Clippard. We previously covered the accident at Timothy Clippard of Missouri Killed on Kentucky Lake in Boat Accident.
Mr. Clippard’s widow sued Yamaha Motor Corporation, USA and Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd. (Japan).
Clippard, et al v. Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A., et al
United States District Court
Western District of Kentucky
Case # 5:;14-cv-83-TBR
The complaint alleged:
1. Yamaha was aware of the risk of outboard motors striking submerged objects and flipping into the boat, and was aware of feasible alternative designs to eliminate these risks, and did little to develop and nothing to implement such alternative designs.
2. Yamaha knew or should have known the hazards and dangers associated with the motor and failed to adequately warn expected and foreseeable users.
In addition to traditional damages sought with the death of a loved one in a collision accident, the family also sought punitive damages based on Yamaha’s knowledge of the problem and their failure to develop and implement alternative designs.
Curtis O. Poore of The Limbaugh Law Firm and Peter Perlman of Peter Perlman Law Offices filed the complaint on 30 April 2014. Midway during the case, Morry S. Cole of Gray, Ritter & Graham, P.C. replaced Mr. Perlman.
Linsey W. West and Kara M. Stewart of Dinsmore & Shohle LLP and Richard A. Mueller of Thompson Colburn LLP represented Yamaha.
The Judge, Judge Thomas B. Russell, issued an Order of Dismissal on 30 September 2016 announcing a settlement had been reached, and the case was dismissed.
In advance of the October 21-22, 2016 National Boating Safety Advisory Council (NBSAC) 96th meeting, the U.S. Coast Guard requested public comments on items on the agenda. The announcement was published in the September 26th Federal Register and the public was given 5 days to respond.
One of the topics to be presented at the conference is a talk by Mr. Phil Cappel titled, “Recent Propeller Injuries & Discussion of Potential Mitigation Strategies”. We submitted a comment on this topic. Our comment lists three types of recent accidents and provides economical mitigation strategies for each of them that are not in wide use:
Pontoon boat “over the bow” propeller strikes – many are preventable by eliminating the bow forward of the fence OR by making it very uncomfortable to sit forward of the front fence and especially to sit on the bow with your legs dangling over the bow. One mitigation shown uses safety grating as flooring forward of the front fence. It is easy to walk on and very uncomfortable to sit on.
Circle of Death bass boat propeller strikes – preventable by the use of foot throttles (boat slows to an idle if ejected without a kill switch lanyard attached). Foot throttles are in wide use on bass boats, but they are not currently being marketed as a propeller safety device.
Large outboard motor strikes submerged object, outboard motor breaks off, and flips into the boat propeller strikes – preventable by the use of a tether
Our public comment letter provides additional details and links describing these accidents, provides lengthy lists of accidents of each type, and addition details on the mitigations mentioned above.
On September 16, 2012 Mark Barhanovich’s boat struck a dredge pipe off Deer Island, Mississippi, his 225 horsepower Suzuki outboard motor broke off, flipped into the boat, and he was killed by the propeller.
A little more information on the expert report in question and its timing is below.
Bean’s expert, Edward Fritsch of ATA Associates, prepared an expert report dated 19 October 2014. At the end of the report, he lists a total of 3 opinions. They were basically, (1) But for failure of the Suzuki outboard swivel bracket, the engine would not have entered the boat and struck Mr. Barhanovich. (2) The extent of fracture of the swivel bracket on the Barhanovich boat is much greater than that of similar brackets failed in the lab and requires evaluation of the properties of the specific bracket on the Barhanovich boat. (3) If Mr. Barhanovich knew a dredge pipe was in the area, he should have been going less than 28 mph.
Suzuki DF225 outboard
Per Bean, Suzuki did not provide full responses to their discovery til 6 April 2015.
Edward Fritsch, Bean’s expert, filed a supplement (update) to his report on 30 July 2015 said to be based on additional things learned from Suzuki’s disclosure. In this report Mr. Fritsch lists a total of 10 opinions, all of which target Suzuki.
Suzuki basically claimed the first expert report was not relevant because it did not make direct claims against Suzuki.
Suzuki claimed the second report introduced ideas and opinions not in the first report. Per Bean supplemental reports were only to expand on ideas previously discussed, not to introduce new opinions.
Suzuki was thus able to get both reports and Mr. Fritsch’s testimony (deposition) tossed from the case on 16 September 2016, just two weeks before the scheduled trial.
That left Bean holding an empty bag when Suzuki moved for summary judgement.
The judge granted summary judgement to Suzuki and Bean appealed. Read More →
Derek Hebert was on a Champion center console boat being operated by Daniel Vamvoras on 7 May 2005. They were between the Calcasieu River and Lake Charles County Club. The steering system failed and the boat began to spin (the Circle of Death). Derek Hebert was ejected, struck 19 times by the propeller, and died from his wounds.
While the boating industry sees this as a steering system failure case, it is obviously a Circle of Death case. The hydraulic steering system had a leak, the steering system failed, the outboard swung to one side, the boat went into a “spin”, Derek Hebert was ejected, and fatally struck by the propeller.
Note – while we call this a Circle of Death accident, we do not know if the operator was ejected, incapacitated, or away from the controls. It really did not matter, because the steering system did not work. The natural tendency of the boat to go into the Circle of Death took over. The operator or someone else on board would have to throttle back or kill the engine, or the boat collide with something to stop its forward progress.
Another boat collided with the Vamvoras boat after Derek Hebert had been ejected.
The U.S. Coast Guard Boating Accident Report Database (BARD) says the vessel Hebert was ejected from was a 1998, 21 foot Champion Bay Champ 21 powered by a 225 horsepower outboard motor with 7 on board.
Champion 21 foot bay boat, 1998. This is not the boat in the accident, it is a similar boat once offered for sale by Rabeaux’s Auto Sales
Faith Kalei-Imaizumi was participating in the Pailolo Challenge canoe race, a 26 mile race downwind from Maui to Molokai on Saturday 17 September 2016. During the race, escort boats bring out fresh crew members in exchange for tired crew members. Faith was in an escort boat. Her hat fell into the water, she dove in retrieve it. While the accident is being investigated, some think the escort boat reversed to prevent striking another escort boat and she was struck by the propeller. Faith was severely struck in the thighs and groin. She was taken to shore at D.T. Flemming Beach Park in Kapalua where CPR was performed by first responders, life flighted to Maui Memorial Medical Center, then taken to Queens Hospital on Oahu. A GoFundMe page has been established to assist with expenses.
House Bill 2024 was put forth in the wake of the Sri Shim propeller fatality, in which his stepson, Trey Albrecht, was also injured by the propeller. Read More →
The recent cluster of pontoon boat propeller accidents, 6 media reported accidents in 8 days in late July and early August, followed by the Kaden Frederick fatality, the chaos at Ocean City Maryland following several accidents there, combined with our earlier efforts at trying to prevent these accidents, and a possibility to get some attention focused on this issue caused us to update the list.
The new version is two pages long, includes 198 incidents, some of which included multiple propeller strikes.
Pontoon Boat anchored on shore
We tried to limit the list to only over the bow prop accidents on pontoon boats. There are numerous other ways to get struck by the propeller of a pontoon boat, but this is the leading cause, and the cause that most often involves children. Read More →
A flurry of boat boat propeller accidents in Ocean City, Maryland has many talking about the recent cluster of accidents.
As we scanned the news this morning (24 August 2016) our eyes were drawn to a DelmarvaNow headline, “In Ocean City, Propeller Accidents Chop Up Vacations”. DelmarvaNow is part of the USAToday media network. DelmarvaNow is named for a large peninsula that includes most of Delaware and parts of Virginia and Maryland.
Original DelmarvaNow headline
Boating communities, like Ocean City, have long been known for minimal coverage of boating accidents because such coverage can drive boaters and tourists away (AND ADVERTISERS with connections to those activities which is most of them in a resort community).
Our observations, some of which have been documented, are the U.S. media fails to cover many fatal boating accidents, only locally covers those they do, and uses much tamer (less shocking) headlines and photos than the rest of the world. Read More →
The the article has since been widely republished and reprinted.
The thesis of the article is that per Mr. Haddon, by 1970 The United States and most developed nations had made significant progress against “living environmental hazards” (medical issues caused by living organisms such as germs, bacteria, etc.). However, similar progress had not been made against “non-living hazards” (accidents leading to injury or death).
The field of Medicine had many strategies and processes by which to attack emerging problems causes by living organisms (such as the Zika virus in current times). While science may not immediately defeat the Zika virus, the basic processes and methods to use to begin to develop a means to combat such a threat are well known.
That same basic structure of processes by which to develop a means to combat an emerging health risk caused by a living organism did not exist to combat a health risk caused by a non-living structure (such as some new type of accident that injures or kills humans).
In his paper, Haddon tried to bring structure to the process of mitigating or eliminating accidents resulting from the sudden release of energy.
In order to better marshal resources against these “non-living hazards”, William Haddon, Jr. suggested that many of them result from “the transfer of energy in such ways and amounts,and at such rapid rates, that inanimate or animate structures are damaged. (Like a bass boat outboard motor striking a submerged object, breaking off, flipping into the boat, and striking those on board with its still rotating propeller). Haddon goes on identify some harmful “non-living hazards” that interact with people and property as: hurricanes, earthquakes, projectiles (like an outboard motor), moving vehicles (like a boat), ionizing radiation, lightning, conflagrations, and notes the cuts and bruises of daily life illustrate our interaction with the rapid transfer of energy.
The paper’s title derives from one example of the quick release energy, the release of tigers. Read More →
