Be extra cautious when boating at night

http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou081215_tnt_missing-aggie.66debbda.html

Just a reminder to be extra safe when boating after hours. My friend was one of the nine involved in the accident, and luckily came out unscathed although he is suffering emotionally. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about, and I can't imagine what the family of the missing kid are experiencing. My thoughts and prayers go out to all who were involved in the accident and let's hope they are able to find him.

Here is the story as posted by one of the girls involved. It comes from the Facebook group - "Pray for Chase Bergfeld

"Friday night (12/12/08) Chase Bergfeld, Kayla Kitten, Blaise Williams, Chelsie Plengemeyer, LeeAnn Papst, Kelsey Mithchell, Kirbi Gayle, Austin Anderson, Matt Gravitt, and Jamie went to Blaise's lake house in Corsicana, Texas to celebrate finishing up with finals. Around 9:00 we drove a boat to a bar/restaraunt where we all had a great time, then left at about 10:30 or 11:00. Half way home we hit a stump in the lake causing all passengers to be thrown from the boat and the boat to flip. There were no serious injuries, just cuts and bruises. Chase encouraged all of us to try our hardest to flip the boat back over..but we did not succeed. we all sat on the underside of the boat and floated, paddled, and screamed for help,but no help came.. It was about 40 degrees outside and the coldness was unbearable.Chase was the most encouraging, positive person in such a terrible situation. Some point in the night Chase bravely got into the water and pushed the boat, determined to get us all home and promised that everything would be okay and that we would all be alright. Somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m Chase began to become delirious and was in obvious need of help. Blaise and Austin then left the boat to swim to shore for help. We all just held on to eachother helplessly and just waited. Some point around 3 or 4 a.m Chase went missing. soon after there was a change in the current and we drifted to shore where we walked to a house for help. We immediately called the cops. Chases family, friends, police, parks and wildlife, and the sheriffs department are all looking for Chase. He needs our prayers more than anything right now, so we are just asking for every person who was blessed to be apart of Chases life and those who were not to not stop praying."

We have a house on that lake (Richland Chambers) and it is extremely difficult to navigate during the day, much less the night. Last year we were with a local fishing guide who is on the lake every day and even he hit a tree and we had to be towed in.
To make matters worse the lake is currently four feet low--making it even more hazardous than usual.
My thoughts and prayers are with Chase and his family. Very, very sad and tragic.

That is terrible and tragic.

The surprizing part is as sensational as the accident sounds, I can totally see it happening to any of us.

There were 2 times in this past summer that something terrible could have happened in my boat. One involved nearly hitting a giant circle bouy (cable tethered to the bottom) at about 40mph, turned at the last moment when it appeared in front of the boat to narrowly miss it.

The other was even more dramatic with some buddies standing on the swimplatform when the throttle was bumped forward and fell all the way down to full throttle.

Driving at night is dangerous, and potentially deadly like in the incident in this story. Having a few drinks can increase the chances of you doing something careless and more dangerous.

Wow! Talk about freak tragic accident.

Anyone know what kind of boat? what kind of stump does it take to flip a boat ( big enough to carry all those people)????

tragic?...yes. i don't want to imagine what the families are going through.

freak?...no

don't outrun your vision at night. at least they didn't hit another boat, i guess.

Truly tragic and my thoughts go out to all the family and friends. The family must be grieving terribly.


There are probably better threads to offer lectures on proper night time navigation. I'm sure those involved are playing this event over and over again in their minds and feel terrible enough as it is. Again my prayers go out to all affected by this event.

Horrible! I watched the video on the news site and the girls seemed pretty traumatized. I couldn't imagine how tough it must have been when they realized that Cory was gone. Sad.

Damn dude that's horrible I'm really sorry to hear that I hope everything turns out ok. Sometimes when that happens especially at night the person can get confused and they'll find em walking the shore line in a kind of delirious state of mind. My best friend got killed in Aug. of 06 we had just finished up riding for the day and were sitting in the boat just after dark when a fisherman ran over our boat and killed my friend instantly

Update to the story. They recovered his body today. A tragic ending, but atleast the family has closure on the incident and may proceed to try and live their day to day life. May God rest his soul and give his family and friends the strength necessary to carry forward.

http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou081218_jj_aggie-missing-found.76f5a53c.html

Geez, there's never a good time to plan a funeral but now is the worst. I feel so sad for the family.

That is one harrowing tale. RIP to the courageous young man who saved all of his friends lives. He is a hero. Its just so very sad.

I was in a boat that hit a very small island in broad daylight, the driver was looking away from the front and ran right into it at 40mph, boat went airborne ejecting his daughter right off my lap, as she flew through the air I jumped out after her and pulled he up from under water as the boat landed with everyone else thrown on the floor and knocked senseless it still was idling in a cirle(jetboat) cracked the hull...we limped it back to our cabin cruiser, we were miles from any help, no one was seriously injured but only by sheer luck.

It can happen anytime, keep the life jackets accessible always...you never know. When it happens it is so fast you will not be prepared so always be very careful and be ready for what you think cannot happen.

I know no one likes to wear them but think about having them on if boating at night especially.

(Message edited by bftskir on December 18, 2008)

Yea no good I went to highschool with chase, he was a few years younger than me but we hung out with some of the same people. Very sad. His mom, family and friends will be a wreck for the holidays.

My prayers to the family. He was definitly a hero.