Rowing accidents in which minor injuries and little or no damage occurs are common; serious accidents resulting in significant injuries or damage are fewer. Fatal accidents seem rare, but four US rowers drowned in 2021, three more rowers drowned in 2022. None of those who drowned was wearing a safety vest. More than two dozen fatalities are now listed on this site.
Some of these accidents have resulted from the failure of rowers to follow recommended safety guidelines, poor judgment, or coaches failure to exercise proper duty of care. Sometimes they’ve been precipitated by medical events. Sometimes, as in cases of equipment failures or collisions with motorboats — they have been beyond the control of the rowers and coaches.
It is unknown how many rowing accidents occur in the United States each year but it is well known that they happen at all levels from middle schoolers to masters and from novices to
It is worth noting that most fatal accidents appear to have occurred on cold water. None involved a rower wearing.
2022: On September 26th it was reported that a second child has died from the September 15th accident on Lake Fairview, FL and the names of both boys have been released. The body of Gavin Christman, 13, was recovered by dive-teams twenty-four hours after the accident. Langston Rodriguez-Sane, 12, was rescued by teammates after their shell overturned in a lightning storm and taken to hospital, where he has now reportedly died.
2022: Fifty-eight year old James Addison drowned while sculling on the Mohawk River on September 17th in upstate New York. He was reportedly a retired naval officer, found still secured in his shell and not wearing a PFD.A middle school rower is dead and a second child in critical condition following a lightning strike in Orlando, Florida, on September 15th. They were in a coxed four with the North Orlando Rowing Club on Lake Fairview Shen lightning struck. The other three members of the crew were apparently uninjured. Leo Lehner, age 15, drowned after apparently suffering a seizure while rowing with his high school team in Dayton, Ohio. According to the Dayton Daily News Leo’s father told police that Leo “had a long history of epilepsy and had seizures ‘during his most calm moments.‘” He reportedly was not wearing a PFD.
2021: A sculler was severely injured while passing under a low bridge on a canal in the Netherlands. It appears the rower ducked to row under the bridge, but straightening up before clearing the bridge and capsized. The rower was rescued by bystanders and resuscitated by the time EMS arrived, but may have suffered a spinal injury. [ https://www.weertdegekste.nl/2021/08/persoon-gereanimeerd-na-val-uit-boot-bij-biesterbrug/ ]
2021 Two members of the Iowa State University crew club, Yaakov Ben-David, 20, and Derek Nanni, 19, drowned in central Iowa on Sunday, March 28th. Three other members of the team survived and were hospitalized briefly. The team was reportedly rowing an unaccompanied coxed four, capsizing as the winds picked up over 20mph and they turned to return to the boathouse. One resident of the 240-acre Little Wall Lake who witnessed the accident was able to rescue one of the survivors with a small kayak. A second survivor attempted to swim to shore and was helped by another resident. The third survivor was able to make it to shore unassisted, but exhausted and hypothermic.
2021 Stephen Crouch, 71, drowned on the St. Lucie River in Florida on January 13th. He was rowing a single when he left the Treasure Coast Rowing Club around 6:45 am wearing spandex and a shirt. He was reportedly lean, fit, competitive, “extremely knowledgeable about the river, where to be, as far as how to handle boat wakes,” and “usually didn’t wear a life-jacket.” His boat was found upright with the oars in it.
Leave a Reply