Survivor recounts duck boat accident
Woman lost nine family members as huge wave scattered passengers
BRANSON, MO. — “Grab the baby!”
Those were the last words Tia Coleman recalls her sister-in-law yelling before the tourist boat they were on sank into a Missouri lake, killing 17 people, including nine of Coleman’s family members.
A huge wave hit, scattering passengers on the vessel known as a duck boat into Table Rock Lake near Branson, Coleman said. When the Indianapolis woman came up for air, she was alone. She prayed.
“I said, ‘Lord, please, let me get to my babies,” she told reporters from her wheelchair Saturday in the lobby of a hospital where she’s recovering after swallowing lake water. “... If they don’t make it, Lord, take me, too. I don’t need to be here.’”
Coleman recalled spotting the rescue boat and managed to reach it, “somehow.” Earlier, from her hospital bed, she recounted to television station KOLR her sister-in-law’s last words.
Coleman’s husband and three children, ages 9, 7 and 1; her 45-year-old sister-in-law and 2-year-old nephew; her mother-in-law and father-in-law and her husband’s uncle all died Thursday night in the deadliest accident of its kind in nearly two decades.
Others killed included a Missouri couple who had just celebrated a birthday; another Missouri couple on what was planned as their last extended vacation; an Illinois woman who died while saving her granddaughter’s life; an Arkansas father and son; and a retired pastor who was the boat’s operator.
None of the 31 passengers on board was wearing a life-jacket, according to an incident report released Saturday by the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
State and federal investigators were trying to determine what sent the vessel, originally built for military use in the Second World War, to its demise. An initial assessment blamed thunderstorms and winds that approached hurricane strength, but it wasn’t clear why the amphibious vehicle even ventured into the water.
Coleman said the crew told passengers they were going into the water first, before the land-based part of their tour, because of the incoming storm. The area had been under a severe thunderstorm watch for hours and a severe thunderstorm warning for more than 30 minutes before the boat sank.
Company president Jim Pattison Jr. said the boat captain had 16 years of experience, and the business monitors weather.
Twenty-nine passengers and two crew members were aboard. Fourteen people survived, including two adults who remained hospitalized Saturday. Coleman and her 13-year-old nephew were the only of the 11 members of her family who boarded the boat to make it out alive.
Another survivor was 12-year-old Alicia Dennison, of Illinois, who says her grandmother, 64-year-old Leslie Dennison, saved her from drowning. Alicia’s father, Todd Dennison, told the Kansas City Star that his daughter recalled feeling her grandmother below her, pushing her upward after the boat capsized.
Chance brought the Colemans aboard the doomed vessel.
Tia Coleman said her family initially lined up for the wrong tour so they had to switch out their tickets for the 6:30 p.m. ride.
She says the crew showed passengers where the life jackets were but said they wouldn’t need them.
Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board and U.S. Coast Guard were hoping a video recorder recovered from the boat would help provide some explanation on why it sank. NTSB member Earl Weener winds were 2 m.p.h. short of hurricane force at the time.