by Dick Werner
 

Now that is a profound statement, but believe it or not there are at least as many fatal accidents of passengers as there are boat operators when alcohol is involved. It is pretty obvious that operators under the influence of alcohol are a danger to themselves and the passengers in their boat, as well as other boaters in their vicinity.
 

A passenger in an automobile under the influence of alcohol will probably make it to their destination safely as long as the driver is alcohol-free. The worst thing that can happen is that they will fall out of the car when the door is opened and they’ll hit the pavement.
A study done by a group of physicians from the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and the University of North Carolina has shown that most boating fatalities are actually passengers who have been drinking, fall overboard and drown. According to the article, less than half of the fatalities involve operator error, and more than half of all deaths occur when the boat is not even moving.
 

I am sure many of us, whether we are participating or just observing people sipping away on a nice cold alcoholic beverage at a dockside restaurant or bar, figure that they – or we – would be safe going out in the boat because the driver had not had a drink. The passenger, with a false sense of security after consuming several or perhaps even just one drink, stumbles out on the dock and attempts to climb on board. He may hang over the side of the hull to assist in untying the lines and bringing in the fenders. Right there are several opportunities for falling in the water and a high probability of drowning.
 

Then we switch to the boat driver who may also have had a few drinks and miscalculates his course while attempting to pass an oncoming boat. There’s a collision with most people onboard ending up in the water. Their ability to survive is greatly impaired because of the alcohol in their system.
 

Some very sobering facts that came out of the previously mentioned study is that even a slightly elevated blood alcohol concentration creates a significant risk. A blood alcohol level of .05, which is within the legal limits for driving a car, made a boater four times more likely to die in an accident. A boater with a .10 concentration was ten times more likely to die and a .25 concentration pushed the risk factor to more than fifty times.
 

You, of course are in control of your own destiny, but as your safety officer, I feel compelled to remind you of the high risk you are taking if you mix drinking and boating, whether you are the driver or just the passenger in a friend’s boat.
 

Be careful this summer. We do not want to lose any of our members to avoidable accidents.