American Whitewater’s Safety Program: Education, Not Regulation

American Whitewater has been working to make whitewater river paddling safer for over fifty years. Because we believe that individual paddlers are personally responsible for their safety, our goal is to do this through education, not regulation. This starts with an effort to learn from the mistakes of others. When a fellow boater is badly hurt or killed, paddlers, just like climbers or pilots, need to know what happened. By collecting and publicizing the stories behind these accidents we can share the lessons learned. We see how others dealt with trouble, identify danger spots in popular rivers, and publicize better rescue and risk management strategies. Sometimes these accounts just reinforce what we already know, but on other occasions they teach us something new. This work also demonstrates to the non-paddling world that we care about our fellow paddlers and that we are doing what we can to minimize the risks.

American Whitewater collects reports of fatal accidents and near-misses from our membership. These cover a cross-section of the sport and include paddlers of all skill levels from inside and outside the American Whitewater community. We’re not trying memorialize or glorify the victims; we want to learn from their mistakes! These accounts are the real-world foundation for our safety program and have been the driving force behind innumerable innovations in equipment, technique, and rescue. They taught us about the importance of life vests and the perils of high water in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, the risks of foot entrapment and vertical pinning in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, and the dangers posed by sieves and waterfalls in the ‘90’s. As long as people are injured or killed while paddling rivers we will try to learn from their experiences.

The AW Journal is our primary method of soliciting these accounts and getting the word out afterwards. We regularly discuss accidents in our bimonthly magazine American Whitewater. A summary of the year’s fatalities is a regular feature that is closely read by our membership. Since the vast majority of our members will never encounter a serious accident, each report is actually a distillation of the hardest lessons from thousands of paddling careers. The magazine also features other articles that focus on avoiding accidents, making effective river rescues, and other safety-related issues.

The American Whitewater Website www.americanwhitewater.org covers all aspects of whitewater sport, including safety. The safety section contains the largest whitewater accident database in existence, searchable by rivers, boat type, and date. It also features an extensive collection of safety articles. There is also an online guidebook covering the all the whitewater runs we know of in the United States. It’s linked to river gauges maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey so paddlers can find out the water level before they head for the river.. While this is not, strictly speaking, a safety function, it has real potential to help paddlers find a river most appropriate for their skills.

American Whitewater also compiles accident statistics and performs safety studies using this information. We closely examine the material collected by the U.S. Coast Guard’s Office of Boating Safety and compared it to our less complete, but considerably more focused data. We publish our findings in American Whitewater and provide it to government agencies, commercial outfitters, and private organizations to assist their educational efforts.

Accidents can have negative political effects for whitewater recreation. Members of American Whitewater have encountered problems ranging from unjustified river closures by government agencies to well-meaning but life threatening conduct at the scene of accidents by emergency responders. Decisions to permit river access or allow recreational water releases invariably have a safety component. To counter this, the Safety Committee writes detailed accident reports following any death that occurrs at any whitewater release or events connected to AW. Since power companies often cite “unreasonable dangers” in an effort to end recreational water releases, we must be thoroughly professional in our response to all problems. In each case we interview whitewater paddlers who were actually there and work closely with local whitewater experts.

There have been three deaths during hydro releases during the past few years: on the Nisqually River in Washington State (2000), the Raquette River in New York (2002), and the North Fork of the Feather River in California (2003). In the case of the Nisqually, this fatality was one of several factors that caused releases to be ended. In the other two cases the release program was unaffected. We will write similar reports on any high-profile accident of interest to our membership or the authorities.

The American Whitewater Safety Code is widely recognized as the most concise and useful summary of safe whitewater practice now available (read the full code). It had its origins in the trials and mishaps of the sport’s pioneers and continues to reflect the accidents and injuries that occur on the river. First published in 1959, it has been reprinted in hundreds of instruction manuals and river guidebooks and is frequently posted at river access points. Hundreds of thousands of copies have been printed and distributed by clubs, organizations, manufacturers and government agencies over the past 45 years.

Communicating the difficulty and danger posed by rivers and rapids is one of our greatest challenges. American Whitewater developed the earliest written descriptions of the six-point International Scale of River Difficulty back in the ‘50’s. Based on a scale in use in Europe, it has been included in the AW Safety Code from the beginning. It is now used widely in the United States and has been featured in virtually every river guide published in North America. These descriptions are also used in many foreign countries and have a wide influence on river rating throughout the world.

Because the actual river rating process is subjective and voluntary, there are wide variations in how this scale is interpreted. To make the process more consistent, Former Safety Chair Lee Belknap developed the Benchmark Rapids Listing. This allows paddlers from distant areas to discuss river difficulty more precisely. The Listing provides examples using popular rapids in each class in the Northeast; Southwest, Rocky Mountains, and Pacific Coast. We urge our members to be aware of regional variations in the scale and to paddle conservatively when they first arrive in a new area.

American Whitewater has created other publications that support our river safety goals. Our waterproof Whitewater Safety Flash Cards summarize vital information needed in river emergencies and are designed to be carried along. It’s a self-supporting venture and thousands have been distributed nationwide. The cards are now published and distributed by Adventure Medical Kits of Berkley, California.

American Whitewater has also helped to develop safety messages for river signs. Key messages are to always wear a personal flotation device or PFDs (which can greatly enhance chance of survival when the unexpected happens), avoid drugs and alcohol while boating (which reduce judgment and skill), avoid high water levels (which can significantly increase the danger factor on what might otherwise be an easy run), dress appropriately for cold conditions (hypothermia can be a significant risk for those unprepared), and avoid paddling alone (another boat is an important rescue tool). Examples of signs include one developed for the Middle Fork Snoqualmie (download pdf) and the signs used on Alaska Rivers like Sixmile Creek (see photo).

American Whitewater also uses the website to distribute information on whitewater rivers. In partnership with local search and rescue teams, the paddling public, and agency river managers we are working to expand our database of rapids and features along rivers through the development of a geospatial database of river features. Our goal is to translate what we know about rivers—the rapid and camp names, road and trail crossings, side creeks, etc.—into something that emergency and rescue professionals can use, a nice set of GPS coordinates.

Safety work at American Whitewater is done by the Safety Committee, which is lead by the Safety Chair. We work closely with American Whitewater professional staff and volunteers to support them in their conservation and access work. The committee uses a Safety Advisory Board to get additional feedback on issues. It includes key experts throughout the country and any member with a special interest in this field.

Our knowledge of the river and understanding of its risks give us a unique ability to put accidents into perspective. Park and recreation managers know from sad experience that death is the inevitably byproduct of any human activity, and often need our help in dealing with the emotional public response. By facing each accident openly and projecting an image of caring and responsibility, we can help our membership and the public at large learn from these events.