SYNOPSIS:
Responded to a medical call for a 12 year old boy who injured his foot in a boating accident.

NARRATIVE:
Rich DISPATCH put out a medical call for a 12 year old boy who injured his foot in a boating accident @ 17:27 hours.  The original call came into DISPATCH @ 17:20 hours.

I responded from my office at the marina and arrived @ 17:30 hours.  I arrived just after the ambulance, 2E502.  I assisted with getting Victim onto the gurney and into the ambulance.

In the ambulance I was able to converse with Victim and was able to obtain his verbal story of what he did and how he was injured.  I also obtained his name and date of birth.  When an EMT asked him his pain on a scale of 1 to 10, he said 5.  It was obvious that both feet had been cut by the propeller of the boat.

I left the ambulance and obtained further information from Victim's parents.  They were not on the boat when the accident occurred.

I went do towards the beach/lake and continued to ask questions regarding the boat and who was on the boat and with Victim at the time of the accident.  Over a period of time, I was able to gather information.

From my verbal interviews:
Operator was operating the boat in a relatively close, visible, proximity to where the other family members were staying for a family reunion near the shore.  I was told that all people on board the boat were wearing PFDs.

OPERATOR stopped the boat and put it into neutral so the three boys could jump into the water and swim.   With the slight breeze, the boat started to drift quickly away from the three boys in the water.  Operator said he saw and heard the boys start to panic.  He said the water was cold.  He said he began to panic too.  OPERATOR said he put the boat into reverse to maneuver the boat closer to the boys to be able to pick them up.  He said it was difficult for him to see how close the boat was to the boys in the water

According to one of the swimmers, as the boat approached the three boys and they began to swim hurriedly towards the boat.  SWIMMER1 was the first to grab the swim deck, port side, and tried to lift himself up to unhook the latch holding the ladder up.  At near the same time, VICTIM grabbed the center part of the swim deck and began to try to lift himself up when he started to scream because his feet had been hit by the turning propeller.  SWIMMER3 was not yet to the swim deck.

Operator said when he heard the scream that he put the boat into neutral.  VICTIM said he was not aware that the propeller was still turning when he approached the swim deck.  OPERATOR was trying to keep himself and the other young juveniles on the boat to be calm as well.  They yelled for another member of the family to call 911 and to come and pick up VICTIM and take him to shore.  OPERATOR said he put a makeshift tourniquet on both thighs of VICTIM, using a ski rope.  Two other adults came out on a PWC.  One got off the PWC and onto the boat and the other brought VICTIM back to shore as other family members called 911.

On shore, family members took off the makeshift tourniquet and tightly wrapped each foot individually in "lava lava" fabric.

The report shows there was a total of 9 people on board the vessel slightly before the accident happened.  I obtained the identifying information from the operator and the three young teenage males who left the boat to swim and then tried to re-board the boat as the accident occurred.  I did not obtain the identifying information from the five other people on board the vessel - two were juvenile teenage females similar in age to the three teenage boys and the other three were young juveniles, who were all under the age of 10.  These five juveniles did not actually see the accident/injury happen.  They heard the screams and began to panic and get the operator into an even more panicky mode.

The boat was borrowed.

Bear Lake
Garden City                   