Drowning highlights the hazards of low-head dams
The Blount County Sheriff’s Office called off the search for a possible second drowning victim at a popular swimming hole in the Walland area Thursday.
That was after one person, 33-year-old Ty Christopher Berry of Maryville, was pulled from the lowhead dam at Perry’s Mill Dam on Wednesday night. Berry was pronounced dead at a local hospital. According to a witness, two men were seen swimming in the area, but search and rescue crews were unable to find a second body.
Berry’s death highlights the dangers of the peaceful-looking low-head dams.
Friday marked the oneyear anniversary of the death of 29-year-old Cocke County mother Anna Last, who died saving two of her sons at a low-head dam on the higher-than-normal Nolichucky River in Hamblen County.
DANGEROUS DAMS
Thousands of low-head dams were built in the 1800s to power mills. And while some still are built and used today to raise water levels around a water treatment plant or divert water to an irrigation canal, many have been abandoned.
The dams are picturesque, and the water, before moving over the dam, is oftentimes quiet. But as soon as it flows over the dam, the water moves swiftly, falling into a cycle where it flows away from the dam and toward the surface before getting caught in the recirculating current that brings that same water back toward the dam as it is hit by the water flowing over the dam.
The water is forced down toward the bottom and the cycle repeats.
Craft stuck in this vicious cycle either buckle and fall apart from the water and pressure or sit in one place, revolving in a cyclone like a toy when the bathwater has been let out of the tub. People hardly stand a chance.
Tennesseans are well acquainted with the danger of low-head dams, which have claimed several lives near Chattanooga over the last few years. A Whitwell man died three years ago while trying to save two swimmers caught in the deadly current at Ketner’s Mill in Marion County. All three drowned.
Jeromy Richardson, 35, received the Carnegie Medal posthumously for his actions on July 16, 2015. He was fishing at Ketner’s Mill when a man swimming above the dam, Charles Hurt, was swept over the edge and into the dangerous water below.
Hurt’s brother, Lebron Hurt, dove in to save him, but he was also caught in the current. Richardson entered the water to save them before returning to the bank and grabbing a board to extend to the swimmers. However, he lost his footing and fell into the water.
The day after the accident, Steve Lamb, director of the Marion County Emergency Management Agency, said the incident was tied for the most people he’d ever seen drown at one time at Ketner’s Mill.
The dam at Ketner’s Mill is particularly dangerous because, like most low-head dams, the water flow creates an inescapable current of water at the bottom that can trap anyone caught in it.
According to the late Bruce Tschantz, a former University of Tennessee professor and low-head dam expert, the dams are death traps.
In an interview conducted with Tschantz last June, he said lowhead dams kill about 24 fishermen, rafters and boaters in the United States every year, a number that’s likely to climb as water sports become more popular.
Per Tschantz’s research, some 400 people have died on low-head dams since the mid-1900s and “scores more” have died, but the information to be able to document deaths accurately is hard to come by. He estimated there were somewhere between 100 and 200 lowhead dams in Tennessee alone.
“It’s no secret that low-head dams are probably the most dangerous type of structure on the planet. Hundreds of people die on these things in small counties, small towns all over the country and all over the world,” he said at the time.
Low-head dams can kill people a number of ways, according to a low-head dam guide, titled “Drowning Machine” and published by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in 2012.
› The recirculating waters will trap even the most experienced swimmers — including would-be rescuers — and disorient them in the thrashing water as if they are in a washing machine;
› The water has low buoyancy because of all of the air bubbles, making life jackets all but useless;
› The water pushes, pulls and dips individuals in an infinite number of ways where rocks, rebar, concrete and other debris from the river are waiting;
› The rivers and streams are filled with cold water and can lead to hypothermia even in the summer;
› The dams are usually made of vertical concrete or masonry, which make climbing out nearly impossible.
› The best way to protect yourself, Tschantz said, is to do research and know the dangers of the waters you want to trek.