How long will it take for people to get the message that boats, night and waterways with trees in them just don’t mix?
You might recall that, about a month ago, 18-year-old Casey Hardman died [1] when the boat she was travelling in struck a tree on Lake Eildon at about 1:30am. The 16-year-old boy who was driving the boat has subsequently been charged with manslaughter, and had the charge withdrawn [2] pending further forensic evidence.
Sadly, it’s happened again [3], albeit this time a bit north of the New South Wales/Victoria border:
A 13-YEAR-old girl has died after being impaled on part of a tree during a night-time joy ride on the Murray River.
NSW Maritime says the girl was riding on an inflatable tube towed by a jetski on the Murray at Moama, on the NSW-Victoria border, when the accident occurred about 8.30pm (AEDT) yesterday.The tragedy has prompted authorities to issue a water safety appeal for the Australia Day long weekend.
With sunset at 8:37pm over there, it would have been pretty dark, probably not dark enough to completely lose sight of the trees, but arguably too dark to use jetskis to tow people with any degree of safety.
One can only wonder how long it will take for the message to get through.
Samuel