Ocoee Drowning
RngrRob
Journal & Constitution. Thought you might be interested.
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Smyrna man drowns rafting on Ocoee River
by Carlos Campos, staff writer
A smyrna man drowned Sunday after he was pulled underwater by strong
currents while whitwater rafting with friends on the Ocoee River in
southern Tennessee.
Robert Lamar Wilkes, 58, of Smyrna, was with six other passengers from the
Atlanta area and a river guide when the raft they were riding in flipped
over, said Chief Deputy Lew Crawford of the Polk County, Tenn., Sheriff's
Department.
The raft had just passed through a rapid nicknamed "The Table Saw" and
entered another named "The Diamond Splitter," Crawford said.
"It was a freak thing," said Crawford. "The raft turned over and capsized.
Mr. Wilkes was swept away in the current and cought in a hydraulic, and it
carried him to the bottom."
A hydroulic is created when water flows over a ledge and curls back on
itself. THey can be dangerous because of a whirl-pool-like effect.
"With that many people in the water, nobody knew where each one went,"
Crawford said. "But they saw (Wilkes). They said he didn't act panicked or
anything like that. But those (hydraulics) swallow you up, then it spits
you out."
Wilkes, who was wearing a life vest was swept under about 2:30 PM. His
body was not recovered until 4 PM. Rescue workers attempted CPR to revive
him, Crawford said.
He was transported to Bradley Memorial Hospital in Cleveland, Tenn., where
he was pronounced dead.
Portions of the Ocoee River are serving as the 1996 Summer Olympic Games
venue for kayaking and canoeing. The accident was not on the Olympic
course.
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Does anyone have any more information on this?
John Parker
|> This is an article from the Monday, June 26 1995 issue of The Atlanta
|>
All I know is what I heard from a paddler talking to Roger Scott yesterday
afternoon. I gathered he was there, or at least close by. The version I
heard had nothing to do with getting "sucked down" in a hydraulic.
Instead, a rafter who fell out in/below Tablesaw was thrown a rope by
someone on shore. The rafter apparently got tangled up in the rope, so
the person handling the rope let go (as they should have). Unfortunately,
the rafter was unable to free himself from the rope, which then snagged on
the rocks (just above Diamond Splitter, I believe). The rafter was held
under water by the rope and the strong current on the river left side of
the Diamond and drowned. Whether he ended up in Witch's Hole or was just
above it was unclear to me. But I understood it to be a rope entanglement-
related drowning; not a keeper hydraulic. If this story is true, it is a
very unfortunate (and uncommon) sequence of events. I don't know what, if
anything, could have been done differently to save someone (who wasn't
carrying a knife) in this situation.
-- JP
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John Parker John....@msfc.nasa.gov
Dan Lyke
>Smyrna man drowns rafting on Ocoee River
I spent a while in the raft-jam upstream of Table Saw that afternoon. The
local paper (and local news reports) attribute the drowning to being
caught in a hole, but there's nowhere I can think of where you couldn't
get a rope, a boat or a rescue swimmer to someone in a hole just below
Diamond Splitter (I've body-surfed Witches Hole, and boat-surfed the
hole just below Diamond Splitter rock, neither is a keeper unless you're
really really trying).
A person walking back upstream on the road (We were hanging out on shore
up nearer to Surprise Ledge) said it was an entrapment directly below
Diamond Splitter rock (ie: not the undercut stuff over on the
left-hand side and downstream, I specifically asked) and that the body
eventually "floated free" (Implication that the river gave up the body
when it was darn well ready), sounds like the victim probably tried to
stand up at the bottom of the ledge and caught a foot.
The victim was a passenger in an Ocoee Outdoors raft running 6 people
plus the guide.
This is, as far as I know, the third death on the Ocoee in recent (20-30
years) history and the second drowning.
And from a convenience perspective, the worst part about this whole thing
is what happens when you give Lance the ranger a mission and a megaphone.
That takeout was hell for a good hour.
Dan
JD
I don't have any direct information on this fatality, but I
did receive the following email from Boyd Evans, a Tennessee
paddler. Normally, I wouldn't post such second-hand infor-
mation on such an incident, but this report squares with the
information that John Parker posted indicating that the accident
was a rope entanglement. As another poster pointed out, there
aren't any real keeper hydralics through there, so a rope
entanglement makes more sense. My symphathies to the victim's
family and friends and to the people involved in the rescue.
JD
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I am sad to be the one to pass on this news, but here it is :-(
I have a few details on a drowning that took place sunday afternoon 6/25/95
on the Ocoee. A friend of mine was teaching an intermediate Chota class on
the Ocoee, and came along right after the incident and assisted in stopping
the traffic on the river while the rescue was being attempted.
Apparently the victim was a male, raft customer. Somehow he managed to get
tossed out of the raft going through tablesaw. A rope was thrown to him,
which he became intangled in, however he proceeded to go on through diamond
splitter rope and all. The rope became entangled as he was going through
diamond splitter, and he was submerged for about forty-five minutes before
he was freed.
There are other details and obvious lessons to be learned, but that is all
I have.
Boyd
NRCRhinos
extractment.
The person from the raft was swimming below Tablesaw and was thrown a
rope. The guide throwing the rope couldn't hold on to the rope and had to
let go. The person floated down past Diamond Splitter and the rope
snagged and the person got tangled in the rope. After staying on the
surface of the water temporarily the person was pulled under water.
Again this is the latest version of the story. For a full accounting I
suggest you call the US Forest Service. They probably have had a chance to
interview most of the people involved by now.
Wayner
Michael B. McGinnis
>
>Does anyone have any more information on this?
The Knoxville News Sentinel in Knoxville, TN included the following
article in its Monday June 26, 1995 edition:
Man drowns in raft flip on Ocoee
from staff reports
Benton, Tenn. -- A man drowned Sunday afternoon on the Ocoee River after
the raft he was riding flipped and he apparently became entangled in
rescue ropes.
Rescurers attempted unsuccessfully to revive him. His name was not
availble late Sunday.
The accident happened when a raft, operated by a commercial rafting
company, flipped at the bottom of the longest rapid of the river, known
as Tablesaw. Authorities were investigating whether the man might have
drowned after becoming entangled in ropes thrown to help him.
-Michael B. McGinnis <McGi...@novell.chem.utk.edu