Dangers Lurk in Oregon’s rivers
Aug. 02, 2024, 4:22 p.m.
Two skinny branches, each a foot to a few feet long, can be seen sticking out of the green waters of the Willamette River.
Benton County Sheriff's Lt. Toby Bottorff, who investigated the July 13 drowning death of Naomi Pomeroy on the Willamette River near Corvallis, suspects it was this snag — with two of its branches visible — that Pomeroy became entangled with while floating by.Courtesy of the Benton County Sheriff's Office
By Aimee Green | The Oregonian/OregonLive
The spot where sheriff’s deputies think beloved Portland chef Naomi Pomeroy died last month while floating down the Willamette River near Corvallis looks innocuous.
Two scrawny branches protrude from a submerged tree in the water. They look like they might scratch the skin of anyone who floats by but not kill them.
But when Pomeroy, her husband and a friend passed by on two inner tubes and a paddleboard July 13, the leash of the paddleboard was strapped to Pomeroy’s leg. The leash was standard issue — not the much-less common kind that comes with a quick release — and after it and possibly the rope tying the inner tubes together got entangled in the submerged tree known as a “snag,” Pomeroy was pitched into the water. Pomeroy, who wasn’t wearing a life vest, was unable to free herself and drowned.
Her death at age 49 sent shockwaves through culinary circles but also leagues of Oregon water recreation enthusiasts. It and the tragic drownings or presumed drownings of at least 18 others in the state so far this summer serve as poignant reminders of the dangers of floating, swimming in and boating upon Oregon’s waterways.
Never, water rescuers say, let your guard down, even in the relatively warmer, gentler rolling waters of mid- to late summer. “It did not look bad at all, but that’s how dangerous those little snags can be. It wasn’t a treacherous stretch of river,” said Lt. Toby Bottorff, who runs the Benton County Sheriff’s marine patrol unit and snapped the photo of the location he suspects Pomeroy got caught on. “When you get hung up, the paddleboard goes on one side, the person goes on the other. And you cannot swim up to get around that.”
Additionally, Bottorff said, the unyielding flow of the river will push the person attached to the leash diagonally down toward the river bed, like a lure at the end of a fishing line being propelled downstream. Escape, without a quick-release mechanism that straps around the waist and detaches with the simple pull of a cord, is nearly impossible, he said.
Bottorff knows of other instances where a paddleboard leash without quick-release mechanisms turned nearly fatal or fatal. Last summer, also on the Willamette River, Benton County deputies rescued a 61-year-old man whose paddleboard had gotten sucked under a “strainer” — often a fallen tree that’s partially submerged — and remained under water while his ankle was still tethered to the leash. The man was losing his grip on the tree — and his ability to keep his head out of the water without a life jacket on — when the deputies managed to free him, the sheriff’s office said.
In neighboring Lane County in 2015, a 66-year-old Eugene man died after he, his paddleboard and the leash strapped to him got entangled in an underwater root ball on the Willamette River. He was wearing a life jacket, which water safety experts say vastly increase one’s chances of survival but are no guarantee.
But Pomeroy’s death has cast new and widespread attention on a problem that has burgeoned as paddleboards have surged in popularity over the past decade or so. Three days after her drowning, the Oregon State Marine Board sent out a news release emphasizing the importance of quick-release leashes on moving water, primarily rivers.
“There’s an emerging trend when we look at the causes for fatalities in recent years where a person, otherwise well outfitted, died because their leash to the SUP (stand-up paddleboard) became entangled in brush or other debris on area rivers,” said Brian Paulsen, the marine board’s boating safety program manager. “Most ankle leashes used by SUP users are not designed for quick release. If you get it tangled on rocks or downed trees, the leash could hold you underwater.”
Water rescuers across Oregon also have been stressing other often overlooked safety precautions for river enthusiasts.
Don’t strap inner tubes, paddleboards or other inflatables together when floating downriver:
Though not forbidden by law, experts say many people don’t know the dangers of tying inflatables together. The ropes or straps between them can easily get caught by obstacles like bridge pylons, snags or strainers in the river. When that happens, people often get tipped into the water, often where water flow and other conditions are at their most dangerous.
Also, when a cluster of inner tubes are strapped together, it becomes far more difficult to steer away from obstacles like strainers or rough rapids.
Clackamas County Sgt. Nate Thompson, who oversees the marine unit that responds to incidents on the Sandy, Clackamas and Molalla rivers, said he and his colleagues rescued five people on inner tubes and a sixth on a paddleboard a few weeks ago on the Clackamas River. The group was tethered together and couldn’t navigate away from a massive strainer, he said. Everyone fell into the water. Half of the people were sucked under the tree, the other went over the tree. No one was wearing a life jacket. One man was petrified, unable to make it to shore. “He just refused to let go of the branch,” Thompson said. “He was just hanging there, barely with his face out of the water and holding onto the life jacket we gave him. He wasn’t a strong swimmer, but it was like, ‘You’re not going to stay here forever.’ We ended up having to go up to him with our boat and pull him off.”
Three people are on a river in inner tubes in the foreground, while many more people are in the water in the background in soft focus
Don’t strap anything to you:
With the exception of a paddleboard with a quick-release mechanism, don’t tether straps to your body. Travis Soles, captain of Gresham Fire’s Swift Water Rescue Team, remembers the man who positioned himself in an inner tube and strapped his wrist to a cooler in a second inner tube. When the strap got caught on a snag, the man fell into the water on one side of it and the cooler on the other. The snag held tight onto the strap, with the man and the cooler held in place downstream by the current. To free himself, the man would have had to muster super-human strength to swim upriver and around the snag, but that was physically impossible, Soles said.
Soles said because the man was on a remote stretch of the Sandy River, it took a while for rescuers to get to him. “He fought to stay above the water for a good half hour at least,” said Soles, who ended up swimming out to the man and cutting the rope off his wrist after trying to reach the man by boat and a rope across the river failed.
Portland Fire & Rescue spokesman Rick Graves, who also took part in the rescue, remembers the sheer force of the river stripping the man’s swimsuit away.
Start early: Some river floats in the Portland area can take four, five or even six hours depending on the speed of the water, whether river users have paddles and whether they stop on beaches along the way.
Thompson in Clackamas County said his division retrieves river floaters about once a week who started too late in the day and got caught in the dark before reaching their take-out point.
“We’re constantly getting calls from people who put in on a four-hour float at 6 p.m.,” Thompson said.
The Sandy River at Glenn Otto Park
