Posted on 06/17/2008 12:38:23 PM PDT by kingattax
A grieving father told yesterday how he was forced to make a 'life and death' decision over which of his children to save when a family canoe trip turned to tragedy.
TV presenter Ian Clayton's daughter Billie, nine, died after their canoe capsized, throwing them into fast-flowing water, along with Billie's twin brother Edward.
Yesterday Mr Clayton, 48, spoke through tears as he told how he had been told by his son to save Billie first. He desperately tried to lift the canoe clear but couldn't see Billie and was only able to grab Edward.
Buoyed by their lifejackets, Mr Clayton and his son were carried away by the strong current of the River Wye in Powys, Wales.
Yesterday he told an inquest into Billie's death: 'When I got to Edward up the river that day, he said, "Save my sister first." It's hard to understand what was going through that little lad's mind for him to say that.'
Mr Clayton, who presents My Yorkshire for ITV's local output, went on to explain the agonising decision he was forced to make.
He said: 'It was a challenge for me. What twin to go for?
'Sometimes I dream that I saved Billie instead. I will never know if I made the right decision.
'Should I go for the one I can see and hope that later I can find the one I can't see? In the end I went for the one I could see.'
He then told how he got his son, who was clinging on to an overhanging branch, out of the water, saying: 'It looked like he was bodysurfing because of the power of the water. I pulled him up and he nearly strangled me because he was holding on so tight.
'I kept saying, "You are going to be OK", but he kept saying, "You are not going to let me die, are you Daddy?"
The pair were met by an ambulance crew when they reached the river bank, as Mr Clayton had earlier called the canoe company and told them to dial for help.
However, a 999 operator warned him not to risk his life by jumping back in to save Billie.
'I was frightened to jump back in there,' he said. 'I will admit it. I'm not sure if I would have if that woman hadn't told me not to.' He added: 'The next time I saw ( Billie) was in the operating theatre in the hospital.
'It is such a tragedy and people say that tragedy gets better with time. But it doesn't. The pain is still the same today, two years and two months after.'
The inquest in Welshpool, Powys, heard Black Mountain Activities, which rented out the Canadian open canoe, offered only limited advice before the family set off.
Coroner Peter Maddox stated that there was 'serious cause for concern' about the way canoes were rented to novices in the UK.
He said: 'There seems to be a potentially large hole in which the very inexperienced may fall.'
The trio, who were on holiday from their home in Featherstone, Yorkshire, had left the children's mother, Heather Parkinson, behind in nearby Hay-on-Wye on April 12 2006. But they took a wrong turn and, as they tried to turn the canoe, a surge of water flipped it over.
Holding up a photo of his daughter yesterday, Mr Clayton said: 'I want people to remember who we are talking about. This is Billie when she was eight and it is her last school photograph.
'Most people who look at it say, "What a beautiful girl." She was a delight - an absolute delight.'
The hearing, which is expected to last three days, continues.
TV presenter Ian Clayton was forced to make a life and death choice between his children
Victim: Billie Clayton, nine, who died in the tragic canoeing accident
Words fail me.
it would be impossible to imagine the depth of that kind of pain. may God bless that poor man.
Headline is misleading.
He just went for the child he could see, and when he got around to going for the other one she had disappeared.
He really didn’t make a choice.
Sad story
Wow, talk about a parent’s worst nightmare...
I truly pray God will provide every bit of comfort & peace to this man & his son, as they begins the grieving process.
R.I.P. Billie Clayton
“He really didn’t make a choice.”
Yes, this father made a choice.
A flooded river has awsome power, even when it appears like it is moving slowly.
My family was on a flooded Fox river near Chicago 10 years ago and one of our canoes got pinned against a cement pylon from an old dam. The force was so great that 6 hulking fireman on the shore couldn’t pull it free with a rope.
The canoe rental place told me the river was safe.
I got a kick in the gut just thinking about having to make a decision like that.
Prayers for the family
Yes, this father made a choice.
Maybe I’m not following the story, but it seems to me that there was child who was visible and he got that one, and then went after the other.
Doesn’t sound like a choice, just reaction to the circumstances that were presented to him.
Some things should never be said out loud.
I’m not sure what the bejeebers these people were thinking by taking children who could not take charge of themselves in a canoe in fast moving water.
One of the first things I learned about water and boats is that any amount of water, no matter how 'safe' it is supposed to be, will kill you if you don't respect it.
As 1/2 of a set of twins, I cannot imagine life without my sister...especially when we were kids. There is a bond between twins that is...indescribable.
Dear Lord, please don’t ever put me in a situation like that. I don’t think I could bear the pain or the guilt.
The story doesn't say if the kids or the father are swimmers. If they aren't, no business being on the river, especially not alone. Moving water is always dangerous to some degree.
If they were good swimmers, it is a tragic accident.
One of the first things I learned about water and boats is that any amount of water, no matter how 'safe' it is supposed to be, will kill you if you don't respect it.
You're right - this sounds as if he'd never been on the water before (which he probably didn't clue the rental place into). I suppose an urban Brit might never had been exposed to paddling at any level. Americans get so much of it at Scout camp and Y camp and guided tours at the beach, we may assume that the average guy knows one end of a canoe from the other -- and be wrong.
He had to make the same decision.
The current was not as bad as the Fox can be when it's high. You're fortunate you escaped an unpleasant ending.
When I got home, I changed from my filthy, yukky wet clothes and shoes. I removed the paper bills from my sodden wallet and hung them outside on the clothesline to dry.
I've never been in a canoe since. Thanks, but no thanks.
Leni
With proper gear, it can be safer. Life jacket, buoyant head gear, and shoes, make almost any river safe, but one must always be completely alert, and also know what you're going to encounter, if you are bringing young children for whom you will be responsible. That may mean making the run alone first.
The surviving child is in for a lifetime of pain. Poor kid.
I have run the Tuckasegee Gorge in NC probably 50-60 times, went once with a bunch of friends when it was just below flood stage. Never again. Everything at that speed is magnified a couple of hundred times. Lucky for us that most of the features were completely covered, and it was just one long flush. But there were plenty of bridge abutments around and they would have crushed any kayak that fetched up against one -- pinning the paddler inside.
We had all the rescue equipment, throw ropes, Z-drags etc. on board, but it wouldn't have done us much good with those forces in play.
The tragedy here is a father who doesn’t think enough to bring life vests for his young children.
Canoe bookmark. (I went a few times as a teenager, and I’m interested in the comments.)
2. Start with a low Class 2 river with "drop and pool" features, and pick a late summer date when there won't be a heavy current and the volume and flow rate are relatively low.
3. If you get stuck under a canoe, just grasp both gunwales and push one up and slip out sideways. It'll break water easily, esp. if you push on the downstream gunwale. Same reason you roll up on the downstream side. If you try to swim down and out, you're fighting your PDF and your helmet flotation.
That's PFD - Personal Flotation Device (paddling vest), not PDF!
It's also important to have a proper PFD designed for paddling, not one of the big bulky orange life vests.
I was expecting “no life vests” too - but the article says they had them on (well, at least the boy and the dad - so I would assume the girl did too).
Lots of folks in my neck of the woods drown in the spring. Nice weather and get out on the rivers. But the spring runoff makes the rivers and creeks WAY more dangerous. And lots of trees and blow-downs to get snagged on and pulled under. In the last few weeks there have probably been a dozen killed.
The most recent was a drunk guy in a small boat with no life jackets spilling his passengers. An adult and two little kids died in that one. Of course the drunk lived.
Read the story. They had life jackets on.
eh...the article says that the boy was wearing one, so presumably the girl was as well.
What a sad story.
On the one hand, if you have one child right in front of you and you cannot find the other, the choice has been made for you.
On the other hand, when after rescuing the visible child you are told by the emergency hotline operator not to go back into the river to look for your other child, well you are making a choice.
And at that point he chose not to go after the little girl.
We paddled the Broad River near Athens one time during Spring Break, it seemed like every frat boy at the University of Georgia was out there in varying degrees of intoxication. My daughter amused herself by rescuing people's beers that they dropped out of rafts and ferrying them back. Fortunately the water was low (it was midsummer and we've been having a drought) so when they fell out of a raft they just swam/waded to shore.
"Strainers" (fallen trees in the river) scare the fire out of me. I will ferry all the way across the river sideways to avoid going anywhere near a strainer. Another quote from Nealy: "(all join in the chorus) Stay away from trees in moving water!"
You grab whoever you see and take them to safety. That's Lifesaving 101.
I've paddled a lot of whitewater up to class IV in an open solo canoe and have taken a good many thrashings along the way. Most people have no idea of the forces at play. Without the ability to ‘read’ the water they are completely at its mercy. There is no fighting it. The most innocent little rapid can be a death trap. Dams in which the water spills over the top are the deadliest - you don't even want to get near them no matter how tranquil they look. In a river that is over its banks, all those trees and bushes and everything else act as one big strainer - get swept into one and it's game over - plain and simple.
Children falling victim to their parent's naivete and/or stupidity are amongst the most tragic.
Actually, the incident I described was long ago. I'm too damn old for canoes now.
The greatest water thrill I enjoy in my dotage is watching my little yellow rubber ducky bobbing up and down in the bath tub.
Leni
Absolutely.
If he couldn't swim, he made the right choice.
If he couldn't swim - then, on an intellectual level, yes.
I would imagine that by the time he had taken his boy to shore and called for help his little girl, who he had not seen since they capsized, was long gone down the river. Don’t know what the river is like, but I would imagine that trying to run downstream might be pretty difficult if its like any the places I’ve found myself in. And trying to swim it you would never catch up.
I can’t imagine the double-guessing that I would be doing. Prayers that this family can heal.
Those things are just one big keeper hole.
I'm just an amateur and stay out of anything bigger than intermittent Class 3. I can usually roll up, but not always (and especially not when I get caught by surprise, like getting grabbed coming out of an eddy).
But take a look at what they're calling "Hell Hole" on the Wye. video. If that's the scariest thing the river has to offer, it's pretty tame. Not quite "Hell Hole" on the Ocoee . . . .
He had one child to live for. At least the child didn’t lose his twin AND his dad in the water.
He had already gotten himself so deeply into trouble that he had very few options.
Gyawd. Look at those teeth.
Agreed.
Yep. Ocoee is a hoot. And the Chatooga. Class III is more than enough for me these days. We all gotta grow up sometime! :-)
It’s always fun to watch a novice flip their boat when eddying out. That little snap at the end - when they least expect it - always get’s ‘em. I know it got me more than once in the beginning! :-)
I agree with you again. ‘Hell Hole’ looks like a pretty tame class II to me. A little to the left there looks like it might be a little ‘sticky’, but that’s a very easy to avoid. But they’re having fun, so that’s all that matters.
We went canoeing when I was just a tiny little boy on the Meramac outside of St. Louis. Sleepy little river. No need to go on a raging flooding river - that’s a whole different ballgame.
When I was about the age of these kids my family went on summer vacation to Nags Head, NC. My sister is one year younger than I am. We were both swimming close to shore when we were caught in a horrific rip current that rapidly pulled us away from the beach.
I was able to keep her head above water by bouncing off the bottom while supporting her by the hips until I could get the attention of our Dad who was on the beach watching our younger sisters. Using the current, he was able to quickly get to us and took my sister and headed back for the beach, barely making headway.
In fighting to keep our position, I had become totally exhausted but Dad didn't realize it since he saw me helping her and he assumed I was holding my own. I saw how tough a time he was having just helping her and I think it was the hardest thing I've ever done to shout to him over the sound of the surf, "Can I come, too?" When he heard me and turned, it was the first and I only time I've ever seen fear on my Dad's face. But without a seconds hesitation he swam back to me and with an arm around each one of our waists brought all of us safely back. Forty years later it still stabs me with terror when I remember it.
It's my prayer that this family is granted God's peace - it's the only thing that could possibly help after such a tragedy.
Tragic story. A lot of people think paddling a canoe is easy, and it is if you are experienced. If you have never been in one or have very little experience, then the difficulty is magnified tremendously. I have canoed since I was a kid and have been with probably several hundred people. I have seen people get in all sorts of trouble in as little as two feet of water with no current. I would guess that the Father had little or no experience.
I was a child when my parents took me and my younger sister out in a canoe. It tipped over, and my father grabbed my sister, first. He said it was instinct to grab the smaller, weaker child. My mother managed to get ahold of me, and both parents eventually made it safely to shore with both daughters. But, my father has always said that he didn’t think which child to grab, he just grabbed the one who needed him most.
In no way do I think my father, or the one in this story should be blamed for which child they saved. When the father in the story saved his son, it was a miracle. We can be saddened that the daughter has died. At the same time we should be thankful that the boy lived.
Concur. Media bastards.
There are rips just anywhere there is a promontory or an inlet and a significant tide or current. St Simons Island looks like the most innocuous beach anywhere -- it's considered very child-friendly -- except for the north end by the Coast Guard station where Gould Inlet runs between St Simons and Sea Island. The rip there at high tide will drag a sea kayak 100 yards before you know where you're at . . . .
I'm not a Chattooga or an Ocoee paddler -- the Tuck, the Cartecay, the Hiawasee (GA), and the Nanty at reasonably low levels are more my speed. I would rather look for tough spots on an easy river than easy spots on a tough river!
"Comin' down!"
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