River safety warnings follow Boy Scout's death

[fgoodwin]

River safety warnings follow Boy Scout's death

http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews ... scout.html

June 08, 2008 19:51PM
by Peter Zuckerman, The Oregonian

Cold, high water on the Clackamas River is treacherous, officials warned after the death of an 11-year-old Boy Scout this weekend.

Finn Terry, an 11-year-old who loved poetry, drowned this weekend during a canoe trip with his Boy Scout troop.

The canoe -- carrying an unidentified man and Terry -- capsized as it raced down a section of the Clackamas River that sheriff's deputies described as dangerous. The man wasn't seriously injured.

Terry and others with Troop 107 were canoeing between Barton and Clackamette parks in the Gladstone area near Interstate 205 late Saturday afternoon, according to the sheriff's office.

Don Cornell, field services director for the Boy Scout Cascade Pacific Council, was unfamiliar with the specifics of the trip.

He said the troop had a reputation for canoe trips and that leaders of such trips typically went through two training courses. But he didn't know who had been on this trip, what kind of training they'd received or what kind of conversations about safety they'd had.

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[pipestone1991]

This is sad.....not much to say....

[lifescoutforlife]

My prayers go out to his family, fellow scouts and scouters.

[riverwalk]

Always sad when we have these things in Scouting. Does anyone here know what that section of the River is classified as, as for river classifications?

[mhjacobson]

That is one of the problems of most inland waterways -- unless there is whitewater there is rarely a watercraft classification that is available.

One of the requirements for Safety Afloat is that the persons in the position of serving in the role as 'qualified supervision' are familiar with the waterway that is being travelled, and that that person knows that the skill level and the physical ability of the scouts that are on the trip are equal to the task.