As the weather warms, and people begin to spend more time around the water, I hope they will practice some water safety — especially when it comes to kids.
I was a diver for the sheriff’s office for years and recovered too many people from one body of water or another around here. It was always sad, but it was especially so when it was a child, and it can happen so quickly.
During one of the big floods here, when Interstate 5 was closed, I was called to get a guy out of a car who’d driven around all the barricades, and into the water. As it happened, I had my dive gear with me, wasn’t too far away, and was able to pull him out within minutes. But it didn’t matter; even that short period of time was simply too long.
When I retired, my folks gave me a guided trip in Montana with a guide named David Dedmon. I took my neighbor and friend with me and we went over to fish with this guy. Good guide, lots of fun and great experience. David had been a deputy, a dog handler, married about the same amount of time as me, and we just hit it off.
A few years later, I wanted to do it again so I called him up and asked to hire him. Instead, he told me he’d just take me fishing, invited me to stay at his house, and we’d just catch up. Days before I was to go over there, he quit responding to my emails and I got a bit nervous about the trip.
Eventually I went to his web page and found the reason he’d not responded: He’d drowned on the river I wanted to fish.
It was early season, the water was running high, and he was out looking for hazards. He hit something and he and his wife were dumped into the river. Fortunately, she was rescued but David wasn’t located until later, his body recovered some distance downstream.
I remember thinking to myself, what business do I have on the river with my limited experience if it can take an experienced guy like David? But the answer wasn’t really that complicated; wear a life jacket.
In the boat, wading in the river, along the bank — you just don’t know when something unexpected will happen and that PFD will improve your odds significantly.
So as we approach Memorial Day, you’ll be reminded through public service announcements, TV and radio ads, and even at boat ramps while getting your boat inspected for safety equipment, to wear one. It’s good advice.
And besides your family, those first responders who don’t have to respond? They’ll appreciate it too.
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A couple weeks ago, there was a story about a Centralia policeman who’d won a restraining order against Bo Rupert. I only know what I read in The Chronicle, but it seemed like Mr. Rupert crossed a line. In a letter to the editor penned on April 11, Rupert felt he’d been unfairly treated by the court, and was being “mocked publicly for sharing pictures of him and his family and calling him corrupt.”
If that’s true, maybe he’d find more sympathy if he’d left the officers family out of whatever problem he had with the officer.
In my years in law enforcement, not everyone was happy with me, or my decisions. That’s fair and not that unusual. But it is unusual to drag an officer’s family into it.
Whatever your beef is with the officer, their family had nothing at all to do with it. Nothing.
So while Mr. Rupert was unhappy the court slapped him with an anti-harassment order, looks to me like he had it coming.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis, and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@yahoo.com.
