RedactedNarrative: On sunday, 5/4/14 at or around 11:00am, operator and occupant put their two man creek boat 13 feet in length into the lumber river at the princess ann state park access area. The subjects headed up river to fish for the day. The weather was sunny and calm and the river had a substantial current as occupant had described to me. 
  
  When they arrived to their destination to fish, occupant explained to me that operator threw the anchor into the water. They both could not find anywhere to tie the rope off, so operator tied the rope which was attached to the anchor around his thigh. Occupant tried to tell operator that that was not a good idea, and operator disregarded occupant's comment and said it will be fine. At around 2:00pm the subjects were fishing in a cut off or small pool along the river bend. Occupant who was sitting at the bow of the boat explained that the boat all of a sudden rocked hard to the starboard side and then back to the port side. The anchor was on operator’sleft leg, and when the boat rocked to the left, it capsized sending both operator and occupant over the port side of the boat. Both operator and occupant were wearing type 3 pfds that were in excellent condition. 
   
  However,neither one had the life jackets buckled. Occupant described that the shock and violent thrashing of the capsizing caused both subject to slip out of their life vest. Occupant began to drift downstream with the current when he realized operator was remaining stationary and not moving with the current. Occupant was able to grab the life jacket that had come off of him and throw it towards the direction of operator he missed by a foot or so and operator was unable to reach the life vest. Operator was unable to stay afloat or drift downstream because the anchor line was still attached to his thigh. The anchor and current of the river were causing operator to be drug down underneath the water. Occupant had floated to a nearby tree where he began to yell instructions to operator. Occupant said that is was approximately 30 seconds of thrashing and trying to stay afloat when operator's head went below the surface and never came up again. 
  
  Occupant waited for approximately ten minutes and decided he needed to go for help. Occupant was able to find one of their life jackets that had gotten hung in a fallen tree and use it to float down river to try and find help. At around 3:00pm occupant was able to float down to princess ann access area and get into operator's truck and use his cell phone to call 911. Red springs rescue6, south robeson water rescue, robeson county ems, and state park rangers assisted in the recovery. Operator's body was found around 6:45pm. The cause of death was determined to be drowning. 
  
  Upon investigating this fatality, i have concluded that the cause of this accident was due to operator inexperience and the improper wearing of the life jackets. Operator and occupant had only been on a boat one time before this trip. If the anchor line had been attached to the bow of the boat instead of operator's thigh, this accident would have been less likely have happened. The instability of the small boat caused it to rock in the current of the water and capsize. The victim's life jacket was not properly buckled. Therefore, it came off during the fall into the water leaving operator fighting the current of the river attached to an anchor with no life jacket. The victim, operator, had little to no swimming skills and was unable to stay afloat very long before going under. All of these factors combined caused operator to drown.