Nine family members died, but somehow she survived
BRANSON, Mo. — At first, the water splashing into the boat was comforting, a cooldown on a hot day.
But then came a massive swell that rocked the boat, and Tia Coleman started getting nervous. Before she knew it, another wave tore through, the boat sank and she could not see or feel anything. Not the son who had been sitting next to her, not her other two children, not any of the 10 family members who had joined her on an amphibious tourist bus — or duck boat — Thursday.
“Lord, please let me get to my babies,” she prayed at one point, recalling the ordeal at a news conference. “If they don’t make it, Lord, take me too,” she thought at another.
Coleman, 34, and her 13-yearold nephew, Donovan, were the only members of the Coleman family to survive one of the deadliest duck boat accidents in the country’s history.
The Colemans, who had been on their annual summer road trip, accounted for nine of the 17 deaths in the accident in this popular tourist destination. In an instant, three generations of this Indianapolis-based family had perished, leaving Coleman with the unimaginable task of moving forward.
When the duck boat entered the lake the skies seemed fine, Coleman said. At one point, she said, one of the two employees on the vehicle — one operated it on water, the other on land — told them not to worry about putting on their life jackets.
“If I was able to get a life jacket, I could have saved my babies,” she said. “Because they could have at least floated up to the top, and somebody could have grabbed them. And I wasn’t able to do that.”
Federal law requires life jackets to be available for each passenger on a boat, including duck boats, but the crew has discretion on when to tell passengers to wear them.
“He said, ‘Above you are your life jackets. There’s three sizes,’” Coleman recalled one of the workers telling the passengers. “He said, ‘I’m going to show you where they are but you won’t need them, so no need to worry.’ So we didn’t grab them.”
The National Transportation Safety Board has taken over the investigation into the accident, which had 14 survivors, including the captain of the boat.
What Coleman and her family did not know was that duck boats have a history of safety issues.
Coleman had come to Branson with her three children and her husband. Her husband’s father, mother, uncle, sister and two nephews also came
Flanked by family members, Coleman spoke from Cox Medical Center Branson, where she was recovering from injuries. She smiled at times when recalling memories of her family and sobbed at others when discussing what she would miss.
“Going home, I already know it’s going to be completely difficult,” she said. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it. Since I’ve had a home, it’s always been filled with little feet and laughter. And my husband.”