How Joe Shattered His Leg, and How He Survived

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May 5, 2013

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Joe lives in St. Petersburg, FL. Last December, he was going for a sail on a friend’s boat in Venice, FL, about an hour south of his home. A 36’ boat, it had a fair amount of freeboard –- its deck sat higher from the water than smaller boats. Nevertheless, it was an abnormally low tide, and a bit of a drop to the boat. Joe had gone through two knee replacement surgeries in the previous year, so he carefully considered his options. As he was first to arrive at the boat, he would have to do this all himself.

He pulled the boat close to the dock, and tossed his backpack into the cockpit. He didn’t want to risk dropping anything into the water during a tricky boarding. That also kept his center of gravity lower, always a good thing when boarding.

Holding the boat close to the dock with his right hand, he sat on the edge of the dock and swung his legs over the lifeline. He judged that he could make the short drop well. Typically, stepping on to the outside of the lifelines would be the best choice, but the boat was so low in the water that this didn’t look like a good choice to Joe.

Unfortunately, soon as he let go of the boat to jump down, the boat moved rapidly away from the dock. This threw his balance off, and with his feet inside the lifelines, he ended up hanging from the lifeline by one knee. While the knee was not injured, his body twisted, and he broke his left femur quite badly. Fortunately the boat had moved so far from the dock that he did not hit his head, but his body weight pulled him into the water. Now he was in cold water, and he was badly hurt.

No one else was around. Hollering for help brought no one.

He managed to pull himself to the stern of the boat, and that is where the owner of this sailboat helped save his life—even though he wasn’t anywhere near the boat yet. The owner had tied his stern ladder up with a “half bow tie,” with the loose end of the line long enough for Joe to reach it from the water. Here’s a picture of the type of knot his friend used. It is also commonly used to secure the mainsail to the boom.

Joe managed to pull the line, drop the ladder, drag himself up the ladder and land in the cockpit using his arms and his good leg.

Once in the cockpit, he was able to find his cell phone in his backpack to call 911. Since he had put his belongings in the boat before he tried to board, his cellphone had not gone in the water with him, and so it worked. The ladder, rigged to be deployable from the water, saved his life. With such a severe injury he wouldn’t have survived long in cold water.

When EMS got Joe to the nearest hospital, the doctor told him he needed immediate surgery. “Please transfer me to St. Petersburg, where I live,” Joe asked.

“You’ll be dead before you get there,” the doctor bluntly responded. “We have to operate NOW.” A piece of bone had cut the femoral artery, and Joe was actually bleeding to death inside his leg, even though the skin had not been broken. Joe has boarded boats many hundreds of times over the years. This is the only time he was hurt, but it was a doozy.

It’s really important to have a good ladder on the stern of your boat. There are several things that go into that. The ladder needs to hang from the boat at the right angle. If it hangs at more than 90º, people will have a hard time climbing it. Injured, it would probably be impossible. In addition, it needs to be long enough that the lowest wrong is well down into the water, or it will be hard to use, especially with a significant injury.

Your ladder also needs to be rigid. I was on a boat once where the owner had made his own ladder out of wood and rope. It floated at the surface, making it difficult to get a foot in the bottom rung after a swim. In addition, its flexibility let it curve under the boat. Finally my friend had to physically hold the ladder out at a 90º angle and then I managed to get back on the boat. A ladder is no place to try to save money. West Marine sells portable ladders you can hang over the transom or the side. They work well. If you use this ladder, get the longer one—it only costs $59.99 at this writing. The farther that ladder drops (rigidly) into the water, the easier it will be for an injured or otherwise impaired person to get safely aboard.

The problem with this type of ladder is that most owners won’t leave it hanging on the boat unless they are on the boat, so it probably wouldn’t have been there when Joe needed it so desperately. However, it is highly superior to anything made of rope and boards. A permanently installed ladder is a better choice, but this one is a lot better than nothing, or a ladder that can’t be lowered from the water.

Joe survived this accident for several reasons. First, he kept his wits about him and didn’t panic, even though he knew it could well be a fatal accident. Second, he was familiar with the boat. He knew that ladder was there, and that it was worth his rapidly fading strength to get to the stern. Third, the boat owner had a ladder long enough to be useful even under extremely difficult conditions. Fourth, the owner secured the ladder in a way that made it easy to deploy it from the water. Finally, Joe had kept his phone safe and dry, and was able to get to it. He does not believe he could have gotten to the marine radio in the cabin. Without his cell phone, he would have bled to death in the cockpit.

LESSONS LEARNED:

FIRST: When boarding any boat with either life lines or railing, pick a place to get on where you can place your feet on the outside of that lifeline or rail. By the shrouds is an excellent choice: you can step on the toe rail and grab the shrouds, which are very strong, at the same time. Then swing one leg over the lifeline, get that foot secure, and then bring the other leg over. This is an expansion of rock-climbing technique: three points secure (one foot on the toe rail and two hands on the shrouds), with one leg moving at a time. If your legs are on the outside of those life lines and the wind suddenly blows the boat away, even if you fall in the water, it won’t be nearly so dangerous a fall. The only thing likely to be hurt will be your pride. But in all likelihood, you’ll be able to keep your behind on the dock, stay dry, and just try again, or hang on to the boat. Either way, you’re safe.

SECOND: Always have your boat’s safety features fully functional. Joe might have fallen off of someone else’s boat without a good ladder, but he still might have been able to get on his friend’s boat, and perhaps by hollering for help from the cockpit, another person would have come along in time. Your properly secured and adequately long, rigid ladder could save someone’s life some day.