Westwater Incident - A case study of a rafting accident on the Colorado River

The following commercial rafting incident occurred on June 4, 2015 on the Westwater section of the Colorado River in Utah. It resulted in a fatality. The names of those who survived have been changed. The purpose of this case study is to provide an actual scenario for students to study and assist in accident prevention. It uses the An interesting sidebar, Charlie the victim and Cliff, one of the raft guides, recorded the incident on their GoPro cameras. The on-site photos are taken from the videos. At high water, over 10,000 CFS, the stretch between Funnel Falls and Skull Rapids washes out, leaving a rapid at the beginning and end and a fairly continuous rapid with small eddies along the side. At low water, Funnel Rapids is fairly straightforward. Two large rocks create a drop and funnel the water into a series of standing waves. At high water, and the day of the incident, the two rocks are washed out. The drop remains with a series of large standing waves created. The second wave breaks on itself. Skull Rapids requires a series of moves at both high and low water levels. The drop at the top of the rapids pushes boats to river right and into a large hydraulic. This requires the boater to actively move toward river left. The boater may drive the stern and stick it into the slack water created by the top hole in the river left. This slows the raft, helping to turn it, and the boater walks the raft past the large hole on river right. Also, it avoids recirculating in the room of doom. The rescue curve can be used to frame the incident. The first line of defense is safety and prevention. In the company's training manual, they include the practical techniques of knot tying, throw bag technique, swimming, flipped rafts and wrapped boats, and miscellaneous techniques. Once an incident occurs, such as flipping her boat, self-rescue involves getting the guide on top of the boat and riding the boat. It could also include swimming the raft into an eddy. Rescue by others in your group can be as simple as picking up swimmers or assisting in flipping the boat by other guides. The distance maintained between boats in the rapids is important in being able to assist others in the group. Since there were no other raft companies or rescue squad available, rescue by others outside the group was bypassed without intervention, injury, damage, or loss result. The worst case scenario is to flip a raft and funnel rapids, swim the continuous rapids, and top it off with skull rapids. This is exactly what happened to Kathy's raft. The group was spread out through the canyon. Kathy ran funnel rapids head-on and the diagonal breaking wave flipped her raft. Cliffs route was 20 to 30 feet to the left of her route and avoided the diagonal wave. The breaking wave could be avoided altogether. Upside down and within 30 seconds of the capsize, Kathy sought to self-rescue and get on top of the flipped raft. She attempted to follow procedure but was unable to do so. This was a training item and had Kathy practiced it, she would have known that she needed assistance getting on top of the flipped raft. Note that the perimeter line on the large tube raft is not in the center of the tube, which can make it much more difficult to get on top of the raft. A stirrup or belly strap would have helped her. Other rafts could assist in the rescue. As Kathy's raft floated by, Cliff was sitting in an eddy discussing the local geology to his participants. He continued his discussion. One minute and 40 seconds later, Cliff proceeded downriver. He is not yet in rescue mode and he needs to safely get his passengers through Skull Rapids, a legitimate concern. Once safely past Skull Rapids, he announced to the crew that they were in rescue mode looking for swimmers. However, at this time, he was a good two minutes behind aiding Kathy's raft. The other rafts in the eddy on river left below Skull Rapids assisted in the search also. Charlie was found 15 to 20 minutes later drowned. In summary, consider the following discussion questions regarding this case study. First, in terms of the rescue curve, Kathy's attempt to self-rescue was unsuccessful. Should she have been able to get on top of the flipped raft? Second, rescued by other rafters in your group is the next line of defense. Discuss the impact of spacing on the rescue. Third, when does rescue mode begin? Should Cliff have waited nearly two minutes in the eddy? Fourth, if you were the guide in Cliff's raft, could you make rescue mode into an exciting activity for passengers? What would you do? Fifth, use your favorite accident process model or barrier analysis to stimulate a discussion on accident prevention. Sixth, if this case study is used to discuss negligence, there are four components which are necessary for negligence to occur. There needs to be a duty to the plaintiff or injured party. There must be a duty. There must be proximate cause between the breach of duty and the injury damage or loss. Note that this case was settled out of court and the plaintiff was pleased with the settlement.