Bear Lake Tragedy

Tragedy at Bear Lake

By Chris S. Coray, Reporter

Rich Civic Times

GARDEN CITY, June 6, 2015.  All of Garden City expresses its collective condolences and we grieve for and with the families so tragically affected by the boating accident this past week.  In addition to feeling just the smallest part of the indescribable pain felt by the families who lost family members,  we extend our love and thanks who did so much to try to rescue and serve all those involved in the event.

On Monday, June 1, 2015, a boating accident took the lives of 3 members of one family and one young friend on a private boat on the lake in Idaho, several miles north of the Utah border when a violent and unusual thunderstorm, with microbursts and winds up to 70 miles an hour arrived from the southwest with startling speed at about 6 p.m. and capsized the boat.  Bear Lake is a 112 square mile, 20 mile long lake that is approximately half in Utah and half in Idaho, it was dusk and becoming dark. Because of the clouds and the waves being so big visibility from the rescue boats was effectively zero.  The searchers wearing night vision goggles actually found the last two bodies as the lake calmed.

The 4 were part of a group of seven which consisted of a family (father, mother, two daughters) and 3 teenage girls who were friends of the children.  The victims were identified as Dr. Lance Capener, his daughters Kilee, 7 and Kelsey Capener, 14, and a family friend, 14-year-old Siera Hadley.

The water temperature was 53 F.  Wave heights were estimated at least 6 feet.  The family had done everything right, including notifying a friend of their expected return time and all were in life jackets. When the boat capsized they attempted to stay together but the storm violence split them apart. When they did not arrive back at the Utah State Marina in a timely fashion the Utah State Parks were notified by the friend. 

Volunteers from Utah were sent to lookout points in Idaho and two of them spotted the capsized boat from viewpoints at elevations above the lake.  These spotters were able to direct rescue craft coming from Utah to the appropriate location. 

Utah rescue personnel and equipment dispatched into Idaho included:  Two Utah State Parks boats, a late-dispatched Coast Guard boat berthed in Utah and manned by Utah rescue personnel, 3 smaller privately owned Utah boats, volunteered by Brian Hirschi, berthed in the Utah State Marina and manned by Utah rescue personnel, all 3 of the ambulances in Rich County, Utah (stationed in Garden City, Laketown, and Woodruff), and 3 Utah based helicopters from the Wasatch front.

By 11 p.m., all 7 persons in the water were located, in spite of darkness.  All 7 persons in the boat had been in the water for extended periods and 4 succumbed to the effects of hypothermia.  The father, two of his daughters and a friend of one of his daughters were unable to be revived, although these 2 daughters and the childhood friend were transported to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake by the Utah based medical helicopters. The mother and two other friends of her children were transported by Rich County ambulances to Logan, Utah, hospitals, and survived.

So far we have been unable able to determine the specifics of the rescue effort mounted by Bear Lake County, Idaho, and its Idaho State Parks entity.  We do not know when Idaho State Parks was notified of the emergency.  We do know that two ambulances from that county traveled to a beach on the west side of the lake near a development called “The Reserve”.  They were not engaged in any substantive way because they would not cross the state line and other resources from that county had no role in the search, rescue, and recovery operation on the lake.  

Sheriff Dale Stacey told Fox News that, “This was the single worst tragedy he had ever seen at Bear Lake.”