On Sunday July 17, 2011 Natural Resource Officer I (NRO) was on night patrol at approximately 12:30 a.m.at Antelope lake in Graham County, Kansas. NRO had completed a vessel safety inspection with a vessel at the boat ramp. NRO returned to his truck and noticed that there appeared to be a vessel on the water with no lights on. NRO used binoculars to see that there was a silhouette of a vessel out on the water with no visible lights on. NRO walked to the edge of the water approximately 40 feet from where the truck was parked. There NRO found a fishing pole in a rod holder with a metal bell attached and a line in the water. The pole was about 10 feet from a camper that had a boat trailer with no boat on the trailer. At approximately 12:30 a.m. NRO tapped on the pole in order to ring the bell in a simulated manner of a fish striking and taking the baited hook. During an approximate ten minute period NRO tapped on the pole enough to ring the bell three times. No one appeared in order to claim the pole or check on it in any way.
NRO then walked back to his truck and repositioned the truck by turning it from facing east to facing south in order to direct the headlights toward the vessel on the water. NRO then activated the emergency lights in order to get the attention of the vessel occupants. NRO then got out of the vehicle that was now 14 yards from the shore and returned to the edge of the water. After waiting a few minutes with no visible activity or response from the vessel, NRO then used the spotlight on the truck in order to direct more attention to the occupants on the vessel. Then one person was visible on board the vessel and NRO called out to the person and told them to bring the vessel in to shore. The person on the vessel responded that he could not because his boat was stuck. NRO instructed him to get his vessel unstuck and bring it over to the shore. During this time wife came out of the camper. While Operator was working on moving the boat NRO and Wife conversed about how the fishing has been. Wife also indicated that the pole in the rod holder in the shore was hers. She also said that to her best guest that Operator had been stuck for about an hour.
While standing next to the camper with Wife NRO witnessed Operator try to rock the boat and used a long pole to attempt to push the boat off of the stumps that it was stuck on. Operator attempted to get the vessel moving for a few minutes and then he began to remove his clothing and slid off the left side of the vessel into the water. Operator began to swim around for a moment and then stood up in the water a few feet from the vessel. He then asked for the spotlight to be turned off so he could see. NRO turned off the spotlight and emergency lights leaving the headlights on in order to illuminate the water for Operator to work on moving the vessel. NRO then remained in the truck and began to fill out citations for both Operator not having lights on and for Wife having an unattended fishing pole. NRO then heard Wife calling out to Operator and Operator yelling for help. NRO got out of the truck to see what was going on, and saw that Operator had been swimming in to shore and had made it about half of the way. At that point Operator appeared to no longer be swimming toward shore and appeared to be treading in the water to remain afloat. NRO retrieved a rescue throw rope from his vehicle and made several attempts to get the rope out to Operator. However, the rope was not long enough to reach out to where Operator was. Operator went under and drowned.
Morland                       