Life jackets at center of duck boat debate
When Tia Coleman boarded a duck boat in Branson, Missouri, crew members showed her where life jackets, in three sizes, were stored.
But she says no one on the vessel told her to grab them as the ship started to fill with water during a violent storm, leaving it to capsize and steal 17 lives. Nine of her family members were among those killed Thursday, including three of her own children. She says that if she had life jackets, she could have saved her children.
“They could have at least floated up to the top and someone could have grabbed them,” she said, starting to cry. “And I wasn’t able to do that.”
Questions about life jackets were among many that swirled as investigators Sunday sought answers into the tragedy on Table Rock Lake. A video recorder was recovered by divers, and officials were interviewing survivors.
Amphibious duck tours should be banned, the former head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday.
Jim Hall, who served under President Bill Clinton, said the sinking Thursday seemed eerily similar to a duck boat accident in 1999 that killed 13 people in Arkansas. Hall said duck boat tours are
“There is certainly the possibility that the extra flotation could instead trap someone against that canopy and cause them to drown.” Gary Haupt Former captain with the Missouri Water Patrol
essentially unregulated amusement park rides, a criticism others have leveled because the amphibious vehicles don’t fall neatly into being either a boat or a bus.
“My feeling after seeing this one is that the only thing to do in the name of public safety is to ban them,” Hall told USA TODAY. “I think it’s the responsible thing to do to ensure (riders) are not put at risk.”
While life jackets are a normal, and lifesaving, accessory in aquatic recreation, they weren’t required to be worn on the Ride the Ducks boats Coleman was in. A report from the Missouri State Highway Patrol showed that none of the passengers or crew were wearing a “safety device.”
Some experts argue that the safety equipment actually could have made escaping the vessel even harder.
“There is certainly the possibility that the extra flotation could instead trap someone against that canopy and cause them to drown,” said Gary Haupt, a former captain with the Missouri Water Patrol, which has now been absorbed into the Missouri Highway Patrol.
Duck boats originally were used by the U.S. military in World War II to transport troops and supplies by land and sea. Later they were modified for use as sightseeing vehicles. They are used in many big cities, including Boston and Washington.
Life jackets aren’t required on vessels that have a cover like that of the duck boats. The worry is the life jackets would cause passengers to be caught in the canopy.
“I think you could ask 10 experts and they’d all have different opinions,” Haupt said. “There’s the possibility that life jackets could cause more loss of life but, then at the same time, they could help someone get to the surface if they make it out and actually save their life.”
Andrew Duffy, an attorney whose firm represented victims of a deadly 2010 duck boat crash in Philadelphia, has called the boats “death traps” and called for them to be banned.
Duffy called the canopies an “extreme defect” that makes a deadly situation even worse.
“People get trapped in the canopy. The life jackets force them up but the canopy pulls them down,” he said. “It’s a Hobson’s choice (a choice of taking what is available or nothing at all). You want to wear a life jacket, but at the same time, you have greater survivability without the life jacket, combined with the canopy.”
Attorney Robert Clifford, whose Chicago-based law firm specializes in maritime cases, says there’s no question that every passenger should have had a life jacket on.
“You can certainly conjure up scenarios where a life jacket could have trapped someone, but the same can be said with seat belts in cars,” he said. “At the end of the day, on average, you’re better off and your survival rate is better if you’re wearing a life vest.”
Statistics from the U.S. Coast Guard show that about 83 percent of drowning victims who were boating in the United States were not wearing a life jacket. The history of deadly accidents involving duck boats shows that the vessels need to be better regulated, Clifford said.
“There’s no excuse. Whenever you’re transporting the public, you are responsible for providing the highest level of safety, and that’s not what we saw here” he said. “The minute they thought they were in trouble, they should have had on life jackets.”