Be careful out there...

John Robinson

John Robinson

Well-known member
Some of you may remember last season in mid November when I mentioned that I had a serious accident with my buddies borrowed Snow Goose. Well I didn't feel comfortable posting more details at the time as we were going through the typical insurance coverage issues and I didn't want to post anything that could jeopardize my family or my injured buddy from a coverage standpoint. It took quite a while, but my insurance company finally did work with my buddy and cover all of his medical expenses, he is whole, I still own my home and we are still friends, so I wanted to tell a bit more about the accident.

First of all I am a sixty year old former USCG licensed boat captain, current private pilot since 1976, I've had one moving violation (speeding ticket) in over forty years of driving no accidents in either boat, plane or auto, in short I consider myself a thoughtful, careful person; so if I am capable of being temporarily careless to the point of almost killing someone, anyone can. I am one of those guys who reads accident reports, boats, cars, airplanes, and sees where the operator was careless and passes judgment on them as being idiots, reckless or whatever, and tell myself I'm too smart to make that mistake. I don't do that anymore. My message to all of you is to not take anything for granted, never let your guard down, and don't become complacent just because you have done a certain hunt hundreds of times in bad weather and darkness without incident, it only takes a few seconds of inattention to change your life forever.

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Things I learned about the system; if you own a boat, don't loan it out to even your best friend. If an accident occurs lawsuits happen and no one is safe regardless of fault or common sense. It doesn't matter if it is your best friend and you both swear to never sue each other, it isn't up to you anymore, the insurance companies are making all of the legal decisions now, and to them it is nothing but business, personal feelings or friendships are completely irrelevant. Read your policy I was covered under my homeowners policy, but only by luck and liberal interpretation of the policy did I avoid being excluded. I think a lifetime of loyalty to this one company and very few claims built up good will to the point that they covered the accident over $100,000.00 claim. If you own and use a duck boat, talk to your agent and buy whatever extra coverage you might need, get at least a million dollar umbrella, it's really cheap.

I'll let you ponder the photos and post details later. Stay safe out there.

John
 
John,

Thanks for posting this up. It takes a big man to show folks your mistakes in hopes they can learn from them.

T
 
I feel your pain John.I spend 5-6 days a week on the water and I thought the same as you until one night I hit a pole marker in the bay at 30mph.
IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE. Glad it worked out.


Best
Bob
 
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BTW, most people who saw the after effect of the accident, the FWP guys who investigated it and others including me and Rich who lived it, firmly believe that had we been in an aluminum boat, the boat would have folded up like a pretzel, depositing Rich and I both ito pitch black, ice cold water in various states of conscienceness, where we would have most certainly died. Those Devlin boats can take a lickin.

JR
 
John,

It wasn't all that long ago I was doing a search for something and came across your story again. I was curious as to what happened and wondered if I had missed the follow up. Glad to hear you and your friend are fine and that everything worked out.

Thanks for reminding us how careful we need to be out there.
 
All I can add is the few times in my life I've really screwed up, is it all happens so damned fast! There you are doing something you feel completely competent at, and overlooking that one thing that really nails you, and your life goes in a completely different direction than you intended, and you're left with woulda', coulda', shoulda'....
 
Not necessarily so. My brother hit a navigation pole in the AR River several years back in the dark and on plane (20mph+) in a 16' War Eagle. The front end of the boat including from low deck forward bent up like a landing craft (45+ deg.) but did not fail - no cracks, etc. He, his buddy and the dog stayed in the boat though were thrown forward. They hit the bent up deck. they were able to motor that boat to the ramp several miles back down river in that condition. could have been a lot worse. War Eagle fixed that boat and you can't tell to this day. My 23' War Eagle rolled around in Hurricane Katrina with nary a dent to the boat. Some aluminum boats are tougher than others. I swear by War Eagle as I have seen what that boat can take!
 
Hi John. I too saw your original post about an accident and wondered if I had missed the full write up. Is that you in the hospital bed? One can only assume from the postion of the boat, the gap toothed smile and the condition of the dock ladder what happened.

I don't know if you are at liberty (or inclined) to detail what happened, but if you ever are, I'd like to learn from it.
John Bourbon
 
Please. I need more details on the story.
Can you also explain how you setup your Goose. I have one myself and never thought Oars would work. I think I will give that a try. Also, looks like you have a removable blind you set up with PVC in the corners. Can you tell us a little more about that setup?

Thanks
Stern
 
Nope, thats my buddy Rich in the photo, I came through relatively unscathed with only a small scar on my cheek to remind me to be careful. Rich is a great guy with a great sense of humor. In the immediate aftermath Rich was lying flat on his back on the smashed steering console, it was pitch black and raining, all the boat wiring was taken out as the console was demolished and that killed the outboard and all of the lights. Rich was lying there motionless, I had his head between my hands then he started to convulse and make bad sounds, I thought he was in his death throws and was praying mightly. What it was, was he had been knocked unconscious and had the wind knocked out of him at the same time, Rich was coming to without out any air in his lungs, finally he got breath in his lungs, and being Rich came up with some stupid joke that I can't remember, I only remember the relief as I told myself if Rich is joking he's going to be allright.

Rich spent five days in the hospital with broken ribs, collasped lung and possible vertebra damage that turned out to be negative. I was there day and night and we actually became closer friends. Rich is pestering me to finish my mini-Honker build so we can get back out there. He also wants to join me on a very important trip as we scatter the ashes of my Cody in his favorite duck marsh. This accident and the long dealing with insurance, lawers and such knocked me back on the boat project, plus my wife and I decided to remodel our house, a three month project that turned into six months, but we are very close now.

John
 
John,

Praise the Lord everyone is going to be ok. It says a lot about both you guys that you are still friends after having to deal with all the lawyers involved. I'm not going to try and figure out how and why it happened but you and Rich have obviously come to terms with it. A true accident can happen to anyone.
 
I thought I recognized that bridge. Killed alot of ducks North and South of there over the years. Dont live there anymore(Lakeside). My Buddy and I hit the stump in the river just North of there around 10 years ago at 5 am. Ditto on the accident awareness. Can Happen to any of us. Could have killed us. After all we are doing this for fun right? Glad everything worked out.
 
I thought I recognized that bridge. Killed alot of ducks North and South of there over the years. Dont live there anymore(Lakeside). My Buddy and I hit the stump in the river just North of there around 10 years ago at 5 am. Ditto on the accident awareness. Can Happen to any of us. Could have killed us. After all we are doing this for fun right? Glad everything worked out.
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Todd, it's ironic that my awareness of that stump that you hit led to our accident. For those of you that don't know the area, the launching ramp is just 20 yards downstream of that bridge on the same side of the river, and the stump Todd is talking about is about 1/4 mile upstream of where we hit the dock. The stump now has a small reflector on it but it is still hard to see, what we usually do is stay close to the right hand shoreline using a spotlight to stay 50-100 yards off shore.

What happened to me was the light drizzle we had that morning really cut down our visability, way more than I thought, and I was driving about ten yards offshore rather than fifty, plus this is only about thirty seconds after leaving the launch ramp, the motor was running rough with the bow high in the air. You can see how our stored blind is rolled up on the foredeck further blocking my view forward. I was distracted by the rough motor and looking down at the controls as I fiddled with the throttle, then looked forward as we finally dropped down on a plane and there was the dock dead ahead. I managed to hit full reverse and hard left turn but we zoomed right under the dock as the river level was about 3' low.

If the steel dock pilings were about one foot further apart , and there was no swim ladder we might have zoomed under the dock with nothing but a very close call, or hit both of our heads on a deck beam and been killed instantly, I guess we were lucky (well me more than Rich), that big bodied Rich hit the swim ladder that broke our momentum by folding up under the dock. You can't tell from the pictures, and I never noticed it before, but that dock is on a slight point where the shore line protudes out into the river a bit more than the others.

In the photos where you can see a section of hull cut out, that was because we jammed so tight between the dock pilings that neil, the owner of the boat had to take a chainsaw to the thwart and side deck to get the boat out. I spent the next month repairing his boat in evenings after work. For the guy who asked about the blind, yes we attached PCS brackets in the corners and we have two sections of yellow-brown heavy plastic snow fence that we weave cat tails and rushes through. Each section has a piece of PVC attached that is sized to fit into the larger PVC brackets. When we get to our spot we unroll them, insert the PVC uprights into the PVC brackets and we are ready to hunt.

John

Heres some shots of us setting up the snow fence blind and hunting out of it. You can kind of see how the snow fence works.
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Thanks for all the details. Right now I have the Snowgoose set up to shoot off the floor. I think you have a good system for a blind in that boat. I might have to give it a try this season or next. Those PVC pipes will make decent rod holders as well.
I am happy to see you all made it out alive.

Thanks
Stern
 
Great post....I think we can all appreciate your candor. Amazingly lucky you two are! It's incredible that your buddy didn't get killed based on the photos. When I think about how close I've been to dying and seeing those photos...its a stark reminder. I've had some close calls and my attitude was always the same,"it won't happen to me".

Stumps in rivers are always the big issue it seems and when they shift around it gets really interesting. I've hit an entire tree that was free floating in a small res in the dark that lodged between the motor and the stern of the boat-it took two of use to stand on the tree and push it under the motor with our feet and then jump in the boat...it was about 12 feet deep. Another time I hit an iceberg the size of an Econoline van on Lake Superior(in May!!)and amazingly enough I had almost no damage to the boat and the thing moved enough that myself and a fishing buddy weren't thrown from the boat. In both of those cases I hit something that wasn't supposed to be there. I was extremely lucky that nobody was injured nor was there heavy damage to the boat.

The dumbest one ever(and I mean flat out ignorant)for me was running up the Kankakee River in Indiana which is basically a huge 25 foot wide drainage ditch on full step in a 17ft boat with a 40 horse and hitting a giant root ball(again that wasn't there in the morning...I musta dislodged it from the bank on the way down)that popped the motor out of the water which knocked me away from the motor in a rather violent manner. The boat immediately turned hard left and slammed into the vertical bank. The dog and I literally flew through the boat and landed in a heap in the bow. I was out for about 10 seconds, I thought the dog was dead but I believe I just knocked the wind out of her when I slammed into her. I managed to get the motor started and though both the boat and motor were damaged I was able to make it back to the ramp.

I've been running flat out in the dark down a large river lately and I've noticed that my depth finder alone is a HUGE asset when staying in the channel. I've always relied on visual ques but if I feel off line a bit that depth finder is a great way to track what side of the channel you're on. For about $100 you can get a cheapo basic one at one of the big box stores and it's worth it.
 
Good idea with the depth sounder. I'm also going to get a GPS, but mostly slow down and keep a good watch out. The other thing I didn't do was brief Rich on what to watch for and how to do it, sometimes you just take things for granted that people can read your mind and know what to do without instruction, but you shouldn't. Glad you and your dog were ok after that crash. My dog Yoda was in the bow with Rich but low in the boat so he was uninjured. After our crash Yoda just lay next to Rich like he was trying to comfort him. It took the EMTs about 90 minutes, the use of a neighbor's duck boat and a lot of ingenuity to get Rich ashore dry and in one piece.

JR
 
You never know where things will end up.
My son, Patrick, was on restricted curfew and couldn't go out boating with his buddies one night. Well, the 4 buddies ran out of beer at midnight (Lake St. Clair) and made a high speed run with the boat to get beer. They ran into a dock. One kid was decapitated on the spot. A second had his head crushed and died soon after in the hospital. The third kid had some massive cuts on his head......lots of stitches but survived. The 4th was cut up very badly and had to be dipped in liquid skin. The whole experience has completely screwed his mind up.
To this day, Patrick is pleased and thankful that I stuck to my guns and didn't let him break the curfew that saved his life by not being on that boat. The Lord has always protected me and mine. :)
Lou
 
You never know where things will end up.
My son, Patrick, was on restricted curfew and couldn't go out boating with his buddies one night. Well, the 4 buddies ran out of beer at midnight (Lake St. Clair) and made a high speed run with the boat to get beer. They ran into a dock. One kid was decapitated on the spot. A second had his head crushed and died soon after in the hospital. The third kid had some massive cuts on his head......lots of stitches but survived. The 4th was cut up very badly and had to be dipped in liquid skin. The whole experience has completely screwed his mind up.
To this day, Patrick is pleased and thankful that I stuck to my guns and didn't let him break the curfew that saved his life by not being on that boat. The Lord has always protected me and mine. :)
Lou
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Wow, I have nothing more to say...
 
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