Canoeing Accident -- Suwannee Bay

“Darlington School, Rome Ga.


From: Audra Babb
To: (alumni)
Subject: Letter from Darlington Interim President and Chairman of the Board
Date: Mar 4, 2005 7:29 PM
Attachments:   image001.jpg image002.jpg

March 4, 2005


Dear Darlington Family:

These are some of the saddest days of our 100 year history.  Most of you know of the tragic loss of two of our 9th grade boys, Rome day student Clay McKemie and Acworth, Georgia resident student Sean Wilkinson, in a canoeing accident February 26th in the Suwannee Bay area on the West Coast of Florida.  We deeply mourn the loss of these two wonderful young men and grieve for their families, and for ourselves. The outpouring of support and condolences from across the Nation parallels the generosity of such emotions we have heard from the Darlington Community.

Clay and Sean were part of a group of eight students participating in an Orr-Treks Outdoor Adventures trip led by Steve Hall‘75, a twenty-five year veteran of outdoor education programs.  In addition to his Orr-Treks business, Steve has taught English at Darlington the past twelve years and runs the School’s outdoor education program.  He has led hundreds of trips over the past quarter-century, including eight previous Orr-Trek trips to Suwannee Bay. Many students from the Rome area, from Darlington, and from around the country have been positively impacted over the years by Steve’s programs. We continue to receive a steady stream of such testimonials from many of his former program and trip participants, and their parents.

After learning on February 27th that Clay and Sean were missing, Darlington representatives (Headmaster David Rhodes, Dean of Students Greg Griffeth, and Head of House Tara Inman) traveled to Suwannee, Florida to be with the students and their families while search efforts were ongoing.  The information in this letter is based on the representatives’ discussions with the trip participants and the authorities handling the search efforts.

Clay and Sean and the rest of the party on the trip departed Darlington Friday afternoon, February 25th as the School dispersed for Spring Break.  After driving to Florida, spending the night on the way, they embarked from the boat dock at Suwannee on Saturday afternoon. The group traveled in three canoes, three single person kayaks, and a “cataraft” (a modified pontoon boat) powered by a 25-horsepower engine.  Traveling together, the group proceeded toward their camping destination, Coon Island, located in the bay at the mouth of the Suwannee River. They were around ¼ mile from the island when the outboard motor prop stopped functioning.  The motor could not be made operative.

By this point it was late afternoon and the weather had begun to change with wind and current making travel more difficult.  After a brief attempt to paddle the cataraft the remaining distance to the island, this effort was abandoned to allow Steve Hall and one of the strong student paddlers to go assist Sean and Clay, who were always in sight but somewhat behind the rest of the group.  The loss of the motor negated the possibility to use the cataraft to collect Clay and Sean.

As darkness ensued Steve and his assisting student turned on a headlamp; Clay and Sean did the same.  The current, again, made it difficult for Steve’s canoe to make progress and as they moved toward Sean and Clay the light the boys had on went out. At this point Steve attempted to call for help with his cell phone but could not get a signal. He and his student companion paddled for sometime until Steve obtained an intermittent cell signal and was able to call his wife in Rome, who contacted the Coast Guard to initiate a search.

Without power, the “cataraft” had drifted with the wind and current. The five students, led by volunteer chaperone Bryan Evans, ’99, did an admirable job of dealing with the adverse conditions.  The group was rescued by a Coast Guard vessel around 3:30 a.m. Steve and his student companion were rescued by helicopter some time later. They were all taken to the small community of Suwannee where they were embraced by local citizens with warmth and generosity.

All attention from this point forward concentrated on the search for the two missing boys. Poor visibility hindered the effort throughout Sunday. On Monday, a clear day, the sad discovery was made around 11:00 a.m. of the boys, both deceased, close to their capsized canoe, still wearing their flotation devices and paddling jackets, and the families were informed by the authorities shortly afterwards.

Knowing the close knit nature of our worldwide Darlington Community and acknowledging the importance of timely and accurate communication in a crisis that impacts us all, the school sent e-mails to faculty, staff and constituents as soon as information was made available. Public information representatives of the Coast Guard were in direct contact with Bruce Watterson, Associate Vice President for Public Relations. Immediately upon receipt of Coast Guard notification, faculty, staff and the community at large were notified of the deaths of Sean and Clay.

There are no words of adequate comfort for Clay and Sean’s families. But even knowing that we have no answers for such tragedies, we are determined to do all in our human powers to support these families, and each other. We know our returning students and faculty will struggle with these losses, as those of us on campus this week have. Counseling professionals will speak to faculty and staff on Sunday to assist us in preparing for the return of students that evening, and on Monday. We will begin the school day on Monday with a gathering in the Morris Chapel and inform all that, while we will attempt a regular school day schedule, we will have counselors available in the Chapel throughout the day and will encourage anyone to visit with them as they feel the need. We are specifically determined to provide support to the surviving students, their families, Steve Hall, Bryan Evans, and the Darlington staff members who were on the scene in Florida.

A Memorial Service for Sean and Clay will be held in the Morris Chapel at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 9th. This will give us the opportunity to celebrate the lives of these two wonderful young men, whom we miss deeply. Even as we suffer over their loss, we give thanks for the time we were privileged to have with them. They will remain bright beacons in our collective memories.


Sincerely,

James P. Hendrix, Jr.                                                   
Interim President           

Roby Robinson, Jr.
Chairman, Board of Trustees

”

“Were there any news stories about this?”

“I've canoed in "big water" before.

It can be pretty hairy.

Good grief, they must have rolled the boat.”

“So it sounds like they just had a horrible tragedy. Sometimes things just go wrong, like the motor on the boat and compound from there.”

“I was canoeing on the Potomac just up-river from Georgetown many years ago.

Two guys in the other canoe made the mistake of digging on the same side at once.

The boat rolled like a log and we thought it was pretty funny until we read the panic on the face of one of them.

He was trying to grab the boat and it kept rolling.

He could not swim!!

My partner and I were ex-Boy Scouts and very good paddlers.

We managed to get him out of the water without him rolling our boat.

We then did a mid-river recovery by drawing their boat across our gunwales upside down then righting it and "launching" it.

We were lucky young fools without life jackets and were unaware of his non-swimmer status.
last edited: 3/06/05 2:16:10 PM”

“I was initially wondering about the fact that they still had their life preservers on... but the water is still plenty cold this time of year.”

“yikes.


We had a situation some years ago where we had to pull a guy out of the lake who was already turning blue --- we were leaving 'white' handprints on him. It scared The Crap out of us all.

It turned out that it wasn't icewater he was drinking; it was tumblers of vodka on the rocks!”

“I too was wondering about the lifejackets too.

They must have died from hypothermia.”

“That Sux, so sad.

now, my 2 cents.... if only 1/4 mile from land the others should have gone ashore, while the teacher and student went back for the other 2, etc, etc”

“Yep... who knows, though?

This is one of those second or third-hand versions, ... that's one reason I was wondering about another source... for comparison.”

“yeah, tilt, doesn't sound quite right, with the "being within eyesight at all times", obviously, too far apart for the wind and current conditions
very sad”

“Yeah, it seems like a series of events that just unravelled into a catastrophe.

Many years ago I was at the ocean with a little brother and two sisters even younger.

I had the youngest of the girls(5) in my arms standing in the surf about waist-deep with the waves crashing on us and we were laughing our butts off.

Little brother was maybe 12 and he was further out and the wave action was dragging him into water over his head.

I didn't have time to slog back to the beach and drop off the little kid and make it back out it in time to grab the boy.

We were all lucky.

I had to wade out to where it was neck-deep on me and just did get a hold of my brother and struggle back to the sand with the 5 year old still in my arms.

I was one terrified and exhausted 19 year old kid.”

“For Sure.”

“Supertroll posted a news article a few days back from CNN about this.

This one has far more details.”

“I looked again, but I'm still not finding it....”

“found it

http://www.thebackpacker.com/trailtalk/thread/36777,-1.php”

“My guess is they died of hypothermia/exposure. There are a lot of high volume spring dumping very cold water near the end of the Suwannee.”

“Oh and thanks for posting that.
It answers my questions that the CNN report failed to do.”

“I was thinking about my scary ocean experience of '72.

It had been years since I even thought of it.

A lifeguard came dashing to my aid as I was dragging the kids out of the danger zone.

Thanks, pal.”

“I was one terrified and exhausted 19 year old kid.”

sometimes you just have to jump feet first into a situation, scary stuff

We were extremely naive and ignorant of the power of the ocean our first summer here. My brother's family was visiting and we were the only idiots on the entire beach in the water with "hurricane effect" waves. We repeatedly tried to make our way out to the breakers, but luckily the ocean kept deposting us on to the shore. It took some bodily injury to get us out of the water. It sure was fun though”

“Surfin' the wash machine can be fun as long as you don't get your clock cleaned.

Yeah, I hadn't thought of that in years.

If I had waited another second or two I might not have been able to grab by brother.
He was slipping out and bouncing for air as it got deeper.

Lucky for us the lifeguard spotted us.”

“I teach both English and Outdoor Ed. How could nyone cope with this?

God help the parents.

Doug”

“how sad. I've also seen the midriver rescue and been instructed on how to do it. I've also practiced righting a canoe while it is submeresed under water, but one needs to be able to stand to do it. I can't imagine the final thoughts and discussions that went on between the two boys. May they find better waters.”