# Accident in Brown's Canyon



## CUBuffskier (Jul 7, 2005)

man oh man


----------



## summitraftgirl (Jul 23, 2008)

what happened? any details yet?


----------



## tango (Feb 1, 2006)

cooljerk said:


> The debate will continue. Looks like another accident on the Arkansas today. Brown's Canyon.


so your knee-jerk reaction is to post on the internet about it before any details surface? good call bro.


----------



## SummitAP (Jun 23, 2007)

I heard that there was a crash, like an alien spaceship crashed into the Ark, and they weren't wearing PFDs... and like... they drowned cuz like they weren't prepared for Earths gravity! Someone should like make a law... or call the Air Force! At least that's what my friend's buddy's dog's previous owner's ex-girlfriend heard at a bar in Salida.


----------



## captishmael (Feb 8, 2008)

cooljerk said:


> The debate will continue. Looks like another accident on the Arkansas today. Brown's Canyon.


 
So, What Debate? Like it Did/Did Not Happen? People Do/Do Not belong on water? The Sheriff Should/Should Not do something? The reporting of a tragedy is just that.


----------



## cooljerk (Jun 18, 2006)

A commercial raft flipped in Pinball shortly after 10:00am. A 40 yo m was unconscious and unresponsive. CPR efforts were unsuccessful.


----------



## Riparian (Feb 7, 2009)

SummitAP said:


> I heard that there was a crash, like an alien spaceship crashed into the Ark, and they weren't wearing PFDs... and like... they drowned cuz like they weren't prepared for Earths gravity! Someone should like make a law... or call the Air Force! At least that's what my friend's buddy's dog's previous owner's ex-girlfriend heard at a bar in Salida.


*
That is total bullshit. *

It was a bar in Poncha Springs. Or near there. Sorta.


----------



## Badazws6 (Mar 4, 2007)

While the point is good, I don't think this is the correct place to be having the conversation. The poor guy just died, lets respect that in this thread, if you have to talk about it how about taking it to another thread out of respect?

This is another reminder that even "tame" Browns canyon can bite. Be safe out there you all.

RIP


----------



## rwhyman (May 23, 2005)

Is there any verification of this story?


----------



## JHimick (May 12, 2006)

Badazws6 said:


> I don't think this is the correct place to be having the conversation. The poor guy just died, lets respect that in this thread, if you have to talk about it how about taking it to another thread out of respect?


I don't agree with this sentiment at all. This is a thread about an accident, it's not a memorial. While it's always appropriate to be respectful of the deceased, anything is fair game for discussion. If you want something to be a memorial, then put 'Memorial' in the title of the thread. This is a boater's forum, we talk about accidents to learn.


----------



## carvedog (May 11, 2005)

cooljerk said:


> A commercial raft flipped in Pinball shortly after 10:00am. A 40 yo m was unconscious and unresponsive. CPR efforts were unsuccessful.


So what's the debate about? 

Vibes to the family of the young man


----------



## mr. compassionate (Jan 13, 2006)

carvedog said:


> So what's the debate about?
> 
> Vibes to the family of the young man


 
Young man? You must be an old fart Carvedog


----------



## jmalefyt (Apr 23, 2009)

Has this been confirmed?


----------



## UserName (Sep 7, 2007)

Another Rafter Dies On Arkansas River

KKTV.Com Article

Another Rafter Dies On Arkansas River Posted: 5:09 PM Jul 9, 2009
Last Updated: 5:09 PM Jul 9, 2009


A rafter died Thursday morning on the Arkansas River during a commercial white water rafting trip. 
The Chaffee County Sheriff's Office says the man was on a commercial boating trip when his raft his a rock in the area of Pinball Rapid in Brown's Canyon, a class 3 rapid. The raft was in the middle of the river when it hit the rock, capsizing and ejecting all passengers into the river. 
All of the rafters, including the 49-year-old man from Carrollton, Texas who later died, were rescued and taken ashore. The man went into cardiac arrest within minutes of getting ashore. 
Emergency crews tried to resuscitate him but he was pronounced dead at 12:40 p.m. at the remote scene of the accident. His identity has not yet been released.
Two rafters were killed earlier this week on an independent rafting trip on the Arkansas River.


----------



## cooljerk (Jun 18, 2006)

Man dies in rafting accident near Nathrop - The Denver Post

*Man dies in rafting accident near Nathrop*

Claire Trageser 
_The Denver Post_


One man has died after a rafting accident today on Class 3 rapids in the Arkansas River, according to the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office. 
The victim, a 49-year-old man from Carrollton, Texas,, was part of a commercial rafting trip. 
The Sheriff's Office is withholding the man's name until his family is notified. 
At 10:36 a.m., the man's boat hit a rock in the Pinball Rapids in Brown's Canyon near Nathrop, according to the Sheriff's Office. All of the boat's passengers were thrown from the boat. 
The victim held on to the capsized raft and was pulled onto a second boat. He was responsive when he was taken out of the water, but his heart stopped on the second boat, said Stew Pappenfort , a senior ranger at the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area. 
Resuscitation efforts were started immediately. Colorado State Park Rangers and Emergency Medical Services arrived within an hour, the Sherrif's Office said. The victim was then evacuated by Chaffee County Search and Rescue. 
He was pronounced dead by Chaffee County Coroner Randy Amettis at 12:40 p.m. 
"He was only in the water a couple of minutes," Pappenfort said. "It could be that the cold water and extertion caused a medical complication, but that's pure speculation at this point." 
The river was flowing at 1860 cubic feet per second at the Pinball Rapids, the Sheriff's Office said. 
Arkansas Headwaters has no high water advisories for that section of the river, Pappenfort said. 
"It's very boatable," he said. "If I could choose any place to go boating, I'd choose Brown's Canyon." At least six people have drowned in the state's rivers in the past 30 days, including two Denver-area residents who drowned on Tuesday after a rafting accident on the Pine Creek rapids in the Arkansas River.


----------



## Yakinsmaaker (May 27, 2007)

*not called for*



tango said:


> so your knee-jerk reaction is to post on the internet about it before any details surface? good call bro.


This is the kind of smart ass response that is really not called for. The guy is right. I just read a couple of threads about accidents on the Ark and non-boaters were ranting about "what should be done"...

this IS the place to discuss these events.

and as someone who went there to boat Brown's the same day, I'm interested for obvious reasons.

so if you have nothing nice to say...say nothing


----------



## Yakinsmaaker (May 27, 2007)

carvedog said:


> So what's the debate about?


I'd recommend going to places like Denver Post online and read what non-boaters have to say... there were about 5 deaths in a couple of weeks on the Ark, and all the ignoramuses are out there ranting about what should be done... of course, they don't know squat, but they are opining about the issue.

The vultures are circling.


----------



## basil (Nov 20, 2005)

Some of the guides are really senstive about publicizing and discussing river accidents. They may have been involved in accident rescues in the past, they may have friends involved, or possibly these accident reports effect their income. I think it is understandable that some people are sensitive about this. 

But, I agree that this is a place to discuss the accidents, figure out what happened, and try to learn from it. 

Everyone needs to be a bit thick skinned about internet discussion.


----------



## MCSkid (Feb 27, 2008)

Everyone needs to be a bit thick skinned about internet discussion.[/quote]

No Shit!


----------



## tango (Feb 1, 2006)

Yakinsmaaker said:


> This is the kind of smart ass response that is really not called for. The guy is right. I just read a couple of threads about accidents on the Ark and non-boaters were ranting about "what should be done"...
> 
> this IS the place to discuss these events.
> 
> ...


whatev brah. dude's post was made perhaps an hour or less after the incident occurred. seems a little premature to go and publicize an incident before any concrete facts have been reported. i doubt any agencies responding to the incident, or any outfitters or boaters involved in assisting at the incident would have been willing to comment so soon. i certainly wouldn't go and broadcast everything i hear over a police scanner to the entire world.


----------



## psu96 (May 9, 2006)

right on tango....OP had no facts so what exactly are we learning here? I believe this is the place to discuss these accidents but I can't learn anything from a post that just states accident in Browns, comes across as I posted it first. dunno just sayin.... carry on.


----------



## whip (Oct 23, 2003)

What is needed is a 64 slice Cat Scan at the put in. I'd recommend a GE Lightspeed. Then we scan everyones coronary arteries and if you happen to be walking around with a 90% occlusion of say your left anterior descencending coronary artery a simple angioplasty and stent could be placed and you could just hop in the raft and go!


----------



## bluesky (Sep 11, 2005)

Ooh ooh! Can we get a good colonoscopy done too? That way it'll help prevent constipation on the river secondary to tumor formation a year or two down the road. What do those effete non-boatin' fools have to say about _that_?


----------



## Yakinsmaaker (May 27, 2007)

*guides' feelings?*



basil said:


> Some of the guides are really senstive about publicizing and discussing river accidents. ...
> Everyone needs to be a bit thick skinned about internet discussion.


What does the guides' 'feelings' have to do with it? Seriously, no one said a thing to hurt their sensitve feelings. 

The initial post was just a heads up. nothing wrong with that. I was on this site precisely to find out info on a previous accident, and it was HERE that I learned that there had been another. And guess what: the report was accurate. Now, if the guy had been wrong, if there had been no accident, then Tango's position would be appropriate, but I just don't think slamming the guy for letting people know is good manners.

as for the guides... I know they take their jobs very seriously and don't want a bad rap. But what better way than for those of us who do boat regularly to stay informed and be able to explain what REALLY happened? In this case, the guy was plucked out of the river but had a cardiac arrest. That's good to know: the guides did their job but the guy had a weakness that killed him. I've known people who can barely swim but get into a raft to run class IV rapids. Talk about DUMB. We have a responsibility to point out that it's very risky to do that. Not to mention folks with heart conditions, or are out way out of shape.

your last comment is right.


----------



## randomnature (Jun 10, 2007)

Well, we're all people here. If a person has someone die as a result of their actions, there is such a thing as survivor's guilt. People's feelings do matter.


----------



## Matty (May 13, 2004)

Why is it that the details of a whitewater accident are such a closely kept secret? The only reporting of them seems to come from an uninformed media source with little or no knowledge of the realities of running whitewater. Mountaineering and avalanche accidents are written up in great detail, so that others can learn from those involved. Seems to me that we are wasting a lot of time arguing over who was right and who was wrong, when none of us really have any hard facts on which to base our arguments.


----------



## glenn (May 13, 2009)

Matty said:


> Why is it that the details of a whitewater accident are such a closely kept secret? The only reporting of them seems to come from an uninformed media source with little or no knowledge of the realities of running whitewater. Mountaineering and avalanche accidents are written up in great detail, so that others can learn from those involved. Seems to me that we are wasting a lot of time arguing over who was right and who was wrong, when none of us really have any hard facts on which to base our arguments.


Most avalanche (can't speak to mountaineering) accidents occur when no commercial interest (guide) is involved. Search and rescue, CAIC (or other appropriate local organization), and the survivors/victims give up the details. In a scenario with guides involved, it's a huge liablility to openly say: here is what we did wrong, here is what we did right. The lesson to take away from this is...

I'm not saying the liability is worth others not knowing, but I'm not the one liable either. Search and rescue typically releases information, but I wonder if we couldn't get some top level S&R guys putting together public reports on incidents. 

Wallbridge does a great job on the east coast putting together accident reports, I think it's just lack of organization that make it an issue here.


----------



## Yakinsmaaker (May 27, 2007)

*not to mention...*



glenn said:


> Most avalanche (can't speak to mountaineering) accidents occur when no commercial interest (guide) is involved. Search and rescue, CAIC (or other appropriate local organization), and the survivors/victims give up the details. In a scenario with guides involved, it's a huge liablility to openly say: here is what we did wrong, here is what we did right. The lesson to take away from this is...
> 
> I'm not saying the liability is worth others not knowing, but I'm not the one liable either. Search and rescue typically releases information, but I wonder if we couldn't get some top level S&R guys putting together public reports on incidents.
> 
> Wallbridge does a great job on the east coast putting together accident reports, I think it's just lack of organization that make it an issue here.


not to mention folks who don't want to talk about it because it might hurt the guides' feelings.


----------



## Randaddy (Jun 8, 2007)

364 days of McDonalds, 1 day of whitewater rafting. You never hear "Man dies jogging in the park" in a way that makes parks or jogging seem dangerous, but "Arkansas River Rafting Death" is an all too common headline. If the most frightening, physically demanding thing you do in 5 years is swim Pinball, and you're on the verge of a heart attack already then it's probably going to happen. Many heart attacks happen on the toilet because shitting is the most intense thing that many elderly or sedentary people do all day. What if shitting is the most intense thing you do EXCEPT for that one day that the family drags you out to paddle Brown's?

I don't know what happened here, but I'm sure sick of the fat and elderly people dying with lungs full of air and us hearing about it like it was our fault. My apologies if this was a flush drowning or other injury, but it sounds like the same old Brown's cardiac arrest story.

How many people raft down there each year anyway? I wonder how many die at the mall compared to rafting...


----------



## farp (Nov 4, 2003)

*Perfectly put*



Yakinsmaaker said:


> What does the guides' 'feelings' have to do with it? Seriously, no one said a thing to hurt their sensitve feelings.
> 
> The initial post was just a heads up. nothing wrong with that. I was on this site precisely to find out info on a previous accident, and it was HERE that I learned that there had been another. And guess what: the report was accurate. Now, if the guy had been wrong, if there had been no accident, then Tango's position would be appropriate, but I just don't think slamming the guy for letting people know is good manners.
> 
> ...


Exactly.


----------



## tony (Apr 19, 2004)

I have been saying for years that the AHRA, since they are incredibly well funded by the commercial outfitters, should be putting AED's down in the canyon with the back boards. Could save a couple of lives and make a difference.


----------



## mr. compassionate (Jan 13, 2006)

Randaddy, any thread or blog on the recent trip on the Colorado?


----------

