It was late Monday 09/04/06.  We ran our usual Boating Under the Influence (BUI) Labor Day task force with 10 patrol boats, 8 PWC's and 50 deputies. 

    It was a typical Labor Day crowd with over 7,000 boats on the water at Lake Havasu and the Colorado River with one exception.  The BUI statistics were unusually low:  28 arrests for BUI on our 90 linear miles of the Colorado River and Lake Havasu; no reported crashes as of 1600 hours on Monday. 

    We were at the end of a "clean" holiday weekend when we received a call of a Jet Ski versus boat crash on the river, across from the Needles Marina.   There was a small boy (the Jet Ski operator) floating face down in the water.    

    The operator was found to be an 11 year old whose mother was on the beach about a quarter mile away.  He was on his Jet Ski traveling north on the river along the Arizona shore with a 21-foot boat called a Hallet following at a safe distance behind and to the Jet Ski's left.  The 11 year old operator suddenly made a sharp left turn, with out looking and put himself on a collision course with the Hallet. 

    The Hallet's operator did an amazing job.  He saw the boy's maneuver, chopped his own power and made an evasive move to the left to avoid the crash.  The Jet Ski hit the Hallet like a torpedo at a 90 degree angle, striking the Hallet's keel.   Initially the crash was believed to be a Major Injury Accident and the boy was flown to a trauma center in Las Vegas for emergency treatment. The boy was released 3 days later with only a bruised shoulder and a minor eye injury.

    When my investigators interviewed the boy's mother she told them she knew he was below the legal age limit for boat operators but had taken him to a "safe cove" to practice and believed he was OK to ride his ski. 
   
    We submitted a PC273 case to our District Attorney's office with the hope that we could use this case as an example to others, perhaps with a Public Service Announcement, maybe probation and no jail time. 

    The DA filed the case as an infraction, equating it to the same as "some kid riding his mini bike in the field next door".  As you can imagine we called the DA and protested rather forcefully and explained that it was more a case of that same kid riding his mini bike on the freeway at rush hour and convinced them to reconsider their decision, which is still pending.

    This case could have easily turned out tragically. It is a classic example of the DA's and the public's ignorance to the hurdles we all face with increasing frequency. We have all been pleading for more and better boating operator education and hopefully operator licensing in the future.

    After debriefing all of the crews, we learned that about 95 percent of the boats we stopped had Designated Sober Operators.  At least that message is getting through somewhere.