Guide in Fatal Rafting Incident on Nooksack Said He Thought Victims Swam to Shore

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The Whatcom County whitewater guide in the fatal rafting incident earlier this month on the Nooksack River told rescuers he lost sight of the 55- and 10-year-old victims after the raft flipped but believed they swam to shore.

John Coleman of Berkeley, California, and his son died June 14 when they were swept downriver after a raft overturned on the North Fork of the Nooksack River, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office previously reported. Two other female customers and a male whitewater guide who were in the raft when it flipped managed to exit the river.

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The son's name has not been released by the sheriff's office, nor was the name of anyone else in the raft at the time of the incident.

A public records request by The Bellingham Herald showed Paul M. Engel, 51, was the guide on the trip.

Engel is listed as an owner of Wild & Scenic River Tours Inc., based out of Glacier, Washington State Department of Revenue records show. Wild & Scenic River Tours was first issued a license in 2007, which is currently good through 2023, according to Secretary of State records.

The Bellingham Herald reached out to Wild & Scenic River Tours for comment for this story, but phone and email messages have not been returned.

At approximately 2:59 p.m. June 14, Whatcom County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue deputies were notified of an overturned, commercially operated river raft in the North Fork of the Nooksack near the Snowline neighborhood in Glacier, according to the search and rescue report obtained by The Herald. Engel called What-Comm 911 dispatch to report that two male clients were unaccounted for, but Engel said he believed they were likely on shore and in the trail system west of Snowline.

Summit to Sound rescue personnel, a K-9 team, swift water rescue personnel, a drone operator, fire crews from Kendall and Glacier and local whitewater kayakers were soon called to help search for the two missing rafters, and Homeland Security later responded with a helicopter search.

Deputies spoke to Engel at the Glacier fire hall, and documents state he reported:

— That the rafting party included a family of four (Coleman, a woman, a girl and the 10-year-old boy) and Engel, serving as the guide.

— The raft flipped in a rapid known as "The Nozzle" near the Snowline neighborhood.

— The two women were able to get out of the river on the right side, but Coleman and his son were swept downriver.

— Engel lost sight of Coleman and the 10-year-old and did not see them actually get out of the river, but he estimated they were approximately 5 feet from the left bank of the river, and he believed they had reached the shore.

— Engel and the two female customers finished running the upper part of the river where it was believed Coleman and his son had swum. The pair were not located.



The woman customer told deputies that the raft flipped in the first 10 to 15 minutes of the trip and that after it flipped, she and the girl were on the bank of the river more than an hour and half before being rescued and continued rafting down the river, according to the report.

The report did not state whether any other rafts or boats were part of the excursion and could have possibly assisted in a rescue.

Searchers and fire personnel checked the trail system Engel thought Coleman and his son may have attempted to hike out along, according to the report.

Meanwhile, swift-water technicians checked the river banks, and a drone was used to check the river and log jams in the area, the report states. At approximately 7:30 p.m., the 10-year-old's body was found by searchers in kayaks in a log jam approximately a half-mile downriver from where the raft had flipped.

The search for Coleman was suspended until June 15, when he was located at approximately 4 p.m. downstream from the Mount Baker Highway bridge west of Glacier.

Both Coleman and his son were found wearing wet suits, river-rated personal flotation devices and helmets provided by the outfitter, according to the documents.

Neither of the victims' bodies showed any obvious signs of trauma, according to a sheriff's office news release at the time.

Sheriff's office spokesperson Deb Slater told The Herald that the incident was not investigated as a crime.

On its website, Wild & Scenic River Tour lists the minimum age for whitewater rafting trips down the Nooksack River as 10, with a written release from parents or guardians. Rafting season on the river, according to the website, runs from May through fall.

On the day of the fatal incident, Nooksack River water temperatures at the North Cedarville measuring location, downriver from where the raft flipped, varied between 45 and 48 degrees, according to USGS records.

The death of Coleman and his son represent just the second fatal incident on the Nooksack River involving a commercial rafting company listed on the American Whitewater accident database, which lists injury and fatal river incidents that have been reported to the organization since 1956.

The other fatal incident on the Nooksack involving a commercial outfitter, according to the database, came July 28, 2001, when a 13-year-old member of a youth group from the Seattle area reportedly fell out of the raft when it hit a rock and was washed under the boat.

The database lists three other fatal incidents involving private vessels on the Nooksack — the death of a 52-year-old male kayaker who was pinned against a strainer near Douglas Fir Campground on March 28, 2015; two men who were pinned in a raft against a strainer on July 3, 1995; and a whitewater kayaker who swam into a strainer on July 25, 1994. Strainers are obstructions — natural or man made — that allow water to pass but retain larger objects, according to whitewaterguidebook.com.

A May 30, 2016, incident that injured three paddlers in a private rafting incident was the only other time the Nooksack was listed in the American Whitewater database.

In all, the database lists 11 fatal commercial whitewater incidents on Washington state rivers since 1994 — less than one every two years — with the most recent being July 3, 2018, on the Spokane River. Health problems were listed as the cause of three of the 11 fatal incidents.