 |
| Dave Troutman |
 |
| Bob Newton |
Coxswain Dave Troutman got a call from the Coast Guard
around 10:55 p.m. Thursday, July 5, about a boating accident on Oneida Lake
less than a half-hour earlier. By 11:55 Troutman and his Flotilla 26 crew, Bob
Newton and Ralph Moore, launched from the Coast Guard Auxiliary Base at Sylvan
Beach and joined the search for three men ejected into the water when their
boat apparently struck a concrete buoy (Buoy 113) some three miles west of
Sylvan Beach.
A fourth victim was pulled from the water by people on
another recreational boat.
"We participated in the search at the direction of
Sector Buffalo… searching just south of Buoy 113," noted Troutman. The
Flotilla 26 crew was out for five hours while another member, Mitch Ford,
manned the base and monitored its marine radio.
A Ninth Coast Guard District news release reported that watchstanders
at Coast Guard Station Oswego received initial notification of the accident at about 10:30 p.m. from
local 911 dispatchers. The operator of another recreational vessel in the area
reported that four people were ejected into the water and was able to recover
one of them.
Searchers included a rescue crew aboard a 25-foot
Response Boat-Small from Coast Guard Station Oswego, an aircrew from Coast
Guard Air Station Detroit aboard an MH-65C Dolphin rescue helicopter; the
Auxiliary crew aboard a 28-foot Bayliner cruiser; several Fire Department
rescue crews; New York State Police, and Oneida County Sheriff's Office. (Local
fire rescue crews were from: Madison County Fire Department; Bridgeport Fire
Department; Cleveland Fire Department; Brewerton Water Rescue; and Sylvan Beach
Fire Department.)
A Royal Canadian Air Force Griffon helicopter, dispatched
by the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Trenton, Ontario, arrived on scene
at about 7 a.m.
A dive team from the New York State Police located the
three missing boaters deceased at about 7:45 a.m. Their bodies were turned over
to Oneida County Sheriff’s Office.
None of the men -- a father and three sons -- was
reportedly wearing a life jacket.
“Any loss of life is deeply regrettable,” Cmdr. Roxanne
Tamez, chief of response at Coast Guard Sector Buffalo, said in the news
release. “But, that is why we’ve forged a strong relationship with our
Canadian, state, and local partners to allow us to respond faster and search
longer.”
“We also strive to educate the boating public to take
important safety measures, most importantly wearing a life jacket.”
The Coast Guard recommends that mariners wear a properly
fitting Coast Guard-approved life jacket at all times while underway. According
to the Coast Guard’s Recreational Boating Statistics 2011 report, the most
current verified statistics available, of the 533 people across the nation who
drowned in recreational boating accidents in 2011, 84 percent were not wearing
a life jacket.
