Family outing goes awry, six rescued from Edisto River
By RICHARD WALKER and GENE CRIDER, The Times and DemocratFriday, July 18, 20081 comment(s) | Default | Large
When Andy Jones got off work early Wednesday afternoon, he figured he’d take some time with the family.
Since the family moved to Orangeburg from St. Stephen, they’d heard people talk about floating down the Edisto River. So they got two inflatable rafts and headed down to the Shillings Bridge Road boat landing to spend the afternoon floating down to the Edisto Memorial Gardens.
More than six hours and a couple of rescue agencies later, they were happy to just be sitting in their living room.
“He told us we’d have a relaxing float on the river – I don’t know what was relaxing about it,” wife Samantha Jones said Thursday, in a joking mood after the ordeal.
The evening began when the Joneses left one car at Maurice’s Barbeque near the gardens for the ride home, and then headed up to the landing. Mrs. Jones got into one raft, while Mr. Jones got into another with 9-year-old Frank Jones, 7-year-old Grace Jones, 9-year-old Kinard Craven and 9-year-old Austin Cooper.
It was a nice trip at first. They saw some spiders – Austin thinks they were poisonous – a snake and duck eggs. Grace lost her shoe, so she and Samantha floated together a little while to try to find it.
And then they ran into their first snag – a limb that punctured and deflated one of the chambers in the inflatable raft carrying Andy and the kids. So they pulled over to the bank, dumped the water that entered the raft and went on floating some more.
But after a while on the river, the same raft ran into some brush. It punctured the raft again, this time deflating it more, while holding the raft in the middle of the river.
“We were going to try to get back to land, but we couldn’t, because of the current,” Samantha said.
The children were wearing life vests, but Andy and Samantha worried about them being carried off downstream. And Andy could barely move because he had been on his knees for the entire trip.
Unable to move from their spot and not knowing where they were, they called 911 on a cell phone.
The 911 call came in around 9 p.m. The command center of the Orangeburg County Emergency Services immediately attempted to locate the stranded caller by tracking their cell phone, according to Director John Smith. But the cell phone didn’t have a GPS tracker system, leaving soon-to-be searchers with five miles of snaking and twisting swamp river to scour.
“They knew they were somewhere between Shillings Bridge Road and the Gardens, hanging onto a log,” Smith said.
With such an area to cover, Smith said OES called out anyone available, including the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety, the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office, the Canaan and Pine Hill dive teams, the S.C. Department of Natural Resources and Community Transport ambulance service.
“We planned to put everybody we could out there,” he said. “When you have children of these ages, it could be bad.”
Searchers launched rescue boats from the Shillings Bridge Road landing and the Edisto Gardens with the idea of searching both ends at once.
| SCDNR safety tips: * Carry a cell phone if possible. * Know the aids to navigation and buoy system in your areas. * Don’t operate the boat under the influence of alcohol or drugs. * When operating sailboats be aware of overhead power lines and wires. * If someone falls overboard, throw something that will float (Personal Floating Device (PFD), raft or cooler). * All boats approaching from the right have the right of way. * Always anchor from the bow of the boat and pull the anchor before leaving. * If boat capsizes, stay with the boat. * If caught in a storm, head into the wind, put on personal flotation devices (PFDs) and keep passengers low in the boat. * Let someone know where you are going. * Gather all lifesaving devices. Make sure they are in good serviceable condition. * Check the fuel and the battery charge. * Make sure lights are in good working condition on the boat and trailer. * Put the plug in. * Connect trailer safety chains to tow vehicle. “Put on your life jacket before you board your boat and don’t take it off until the voyage is over, because the bottom line is PFDs save lives,” Col. Alvin Taylor, head of S.C. Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Law Enforcement. |
Land-based searchers were sent to roads near the river. Those emergency crews used air horns and lights and called to the lost family.
Meanwhile, Samantha and the kids sang songs, counted fireflies and did whatever they could do to occupy themselves, while Andy shifted back and forth, trying to relieve the pain from squatting on his knees throughout the trip.
Samantha says she knew the Lord was with them and DNR was on the way.
“I was at peace ... and I had the greatest kids in the world with me,” she said.
Rescue workers were calling for a State Law Enforcement Division helicopter. And then there was a breakthrough at about 11 p.m.
The family had been talking with dispatchers and officials for hours, when Andy told them one of the homes a couple of bends back had a yellow chair.
“One of the men knew the river so well, he knew the yellow chair,” Andy said.
While they were on the phone, the man drove into position, set off his car alarm and asked Andy if he heard it. He did.
“I don’t know what we would have done without a cell phone,” Andy said.
Pretty soon, rescue workers were coming though the brush. They swam out to the raft and brought it in, Andy said.
They were behind the Country Club, maybe about 400 yards from the nearest road, Andy says. They were still 2.5 miles from the Edisto Memorial Gardens, as the crow flies, or about four miles if you count the twists and turns in the river.
Through it all, Samantha said, “The kids were real troopers.”
Grace lost her shoe again and had to be carried out. Otherwise, the family was fine.
And they had nothing but good things to say about the rescue workers, from the dispatcher who took their first call to the people who ultimately found them.
Smith said he’s just happy the family’s safe.
“It’s a good feeling,” he said. “I mean, we had 7- and 9-year-olds clinging to a raft on the river. There’s just too much potential there for loss of life.”
T&D Staff Writer Richard Walker can be reached by e-mail at rwalker @timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5516. T&D City Editor Gene Crider can be reached by e-mail at gcrider@timesanddemo crat.com or by phone at 803-533-5570.
minimouse wrote on Jul 18, 2008 7:35 PM:
Hope this will be one of those memories that bind families together. Cute kids! "