An Avoidable Tragedy

Last week, I was sent out to the scene of a drowning in Golden Gate Estates. The Estates is a rather wide open area with homes on large plots of land with various canals running through the grid of neighborhoods. When I arrived, there was one person that was confirmed dead and another missing out of a group of four who were on a small jon boat searching the canals for saw palmetto berries. At one point in their trip, the boat capsized and only two made it to shore. No one was wearing a life jacket and no one on the boat could swim.

While I was out there, the scene stayed pretty quiet. Friends and family members waited to hear any news. Eventually, the family of one of the women who drowned was let on the scene and once the victim's sister found out the news, she began to scream and cry. The survivors began to come out from behind the scenes with sad, yet blank looks on their faces. I couldn't imagine having to witness what they did. What baffles me is the fact that this entire event could have been easily avoided if the group had life jackets or if just one of the people could swim, the outcome could be completely different.

When I was driving home, I was thinking about how sad the whole event was. Even though these situations can be difficult to cover logistically and even more so emotionally I try to always to stress how important it is showing these events. A situation like this can happen to anyone and hopefully these stories can change someone's outlook on how they would deal with a situation like this. It's my hope that after someone saw my pictures, they threw extra life vests on their boat or maybe they decided to teach their child to swim.