Operator was crappie and cat fishing on shearon harris reservoir in the early morning hours of 3/4/2011.  The wind started to pick up around 12:30am.  Operator continued to fish for another hour before heading toward shore.  Operator had to travel approximately 3/4 mile to reach the access area from his fishing location.  Heading back operator was traveling straight into the wind.  Once operator rounded the final point, he would have a strong crosswind to battle getting to shore.  As operator made the turn, a strong gust of wind picked up the front of the jon boat.  Operator lunged from the back of the boat toward the front to try and keep it down.  He was unsuccessful and the boat flipped over.  Most all of operator's gear was lost and operator was able to crawl onto the bottom of the jon boat which was still floating.  At this point, operator made a decision not to swim to the closest shore because he would have about a mile walk to get to the closest road.  He decided to swim to the access area where his vehicle was located.  This was going to be a swim of approximately 400 yards.  Operator made the swim.  Once at the access area, operator could not use his legs.  He drug himself to his vehicle and tried to warm up.  After approximately 15 minutes, he had some function of his legs and was able to work the clutch on the straight drive vehicle.  Operator headed for home and had a wreck several miles from the lake.  He was life flighted to unc hospital where he stayed for 2 days.  Hypothermia was determined to be the cause of the wreck and operator not being able to function properly to drive the vehicle.

Talking to operator, i was able to determine that all of his gear was located in the stern of the jon boat.  There were 4 batteries, fishing rods and tackle box and operator all in the back of the boat.  I believe this caused the bow of the boat to sit higher out of the water than under normal loading conditions.  Once the final turn was made to head toward shore, the gust of wind easily picked the bow of the boat up, thus flipping the boat.

APEX                          