Excerpts from Brian Hirschi’s
personal first-hand account of the search and rescue operation for seven
missing boaters that occurred the night of Monday June 1st, 2015 at
Bear Lake.
….”I’ve done my best to make a record. I do not wish to offend
anybody. If any person involved knows of any details that need correcting,
please let me know …”
"On the evening of Monday June 1st, I was working
on our new floating boat rental concession building in the Bear Lake State Park
Marina when a huge sudden gust of wind came out of nowhere about 5:30 or 6:00pm
blowing from east to west, which is a rare direction for the wind to blow on
Bear Lake. The wind kept blowing hard, so I stayed at the marina to make sure
our newly constructed floating building would stay in place on its anchors.
After a while, the wind changed direction and started blowing from north to
south, which is also unusual for the prevailing wind to change directions like
that. These freak winds usually come up once or twice a summer on average at
Bear Lake, and they unfortunately always seem to happen right before it gets
dark.
I saw a group of people on the north arm of the marina
looking out into the lake northward, and I saw that the State Park had taken one
of their boats out of the marina to investigate something. I heard the chatter
from the State Park that the group had said the other part of their group was
overdue in their boat coming from North Beach to the marina. There was also a
report of a floating dock that had gotten loose from the scout camp just north
of the marina and was floating out in the lake.
Soon after, the State Park sent out a second boat to assist
and search. At this point, nobody knew if this was a just a stranded boat ..... or if it was something more serious. I had thought about taking one of our
rental boats out to help look at that point, but the description of the type
and color of the missing boat was the same as our rental boat, and I thought
this might cause additional confusion with people thinking our boat was the
missing boat. ...
I saw that rescue personnel had started arriving at the State
Park and somebody had gone directly above the marina on the hillside and was
looking out over the water with a spotting scope or binoculars. For some reason
at this point, I had a strange feeling that this incident was not going to be a
simple case of a boat with engine problems. I decided that I would at least
drive in my truck towards Fish Haven and St Charles at the north end of the
lake and see if I could spot anything out in the lake from the foothills with
my high-power binoculars. From past experience, I’ve found that looking over
the vast waters of the lake with binoculars from a high vantage point when there are huge waves is
highly effective compared to being out on a boat. When you’re in a boat out on
the water with the huge waves, it’s very difficult to spot anything with the
rolling waves only giving you a short glimpse of any potential target. But of
course, somebody has to be out on the boats in the lake in case something is
spotted, which we are grateful to the State Park for doing.
At that moment, my
cousin, Joey Stocking, showed up at the marina. I told Joey and the deputy
on-scene that I was going to drive to Fish Haven and St Charles to see if I
could spot anything with binoculars. The deputy asked if I had the number to
dispatch just in case, and I told him that I did.
I don’t know why, but I had a strong feeling of exactly where
I needed to go in my truck to scan the lake. I knew the foothills between Fish
Haven and St Charles would give me a great vantage point from where to look.
This was about 7 miles away, and I hurried in my vehicle to get there. When I
arrived to the location, I saw my cousin Joey in his vehicle was also arriving
to the area, and we each took positions on adjoining hillsides and started
spotting. After looking through my binoculars for a minute or two and attempting
to scan every square foot of the vast lake before it got dark, I spotted what
appeared to be a black dot on the water about 500-700 yards off shore. I kept
watching the black dot, and every once in a while it would suddenly look as if though
there were two black dots. I couldn’t tell if the dots were people, or what
they were. I thought they might be birds weathering the storm, or the boots
from a water ski left abandoned in the lake, or some other debris that got
blown out into the lake from the storm.
From my cell phone records, at 8:19pm, I called my cousin
Joey on his cell phone, who was sitting on the next hillside over. We had a two
minute conversation where he told me that he also thought he saw something in
the water, but that he thought it might be birds too. He said I should stay in
position, and he would drive down to the beach and get a closer look. Joey
drove his truck to the beach at an access point a little south of where we were
at on the hillside. While he was driving his truck down, I spotted another
unknown object in the lake about 2 1/2 to 3 miles out in the middle of lake
eastward. I kept an eye on both objects to keep track of them.
Ten minutes later at 8:29 pm, I thought I saw the two black
dots moving slightly through the water with what appeared to be kicking behind
them to propel them, but I wasn’t sure. At this point, I was only about 50%
sure that the black dots might be people. I attempted to call Joey so he could
radio it in since I didn’t have a radio, but he did. His phone went straight to
voicemail. I came to find out later that his cell phone battery had died. I also
sent him an instant voice message on an app that we have on our phones, also at
8:29pm. Replaying the recorded message now, I had said to Joey, “I’m pretty
sure that’s a person, it looks like they’re on their back and I can see
kicking. I think that’s a person, should I let somebody know?” I didn’t receive
an immediate response, so at 8:31pm I called dispatch and told them to relay
the message to the state park boats out on the water, and to come about 500
yards off shore directly below a particular development’s entrance where we
were at.
Two minutes later at 8:33pm, Joey
called me on my cell phone. We had a 58 second phone conversation where I told
him I had called this into dispatch. Joey may have said that he either had also
called it in over the radio, or that he would call it in too. I told Joey that
I was going to drive my truck down onto the beach through a different access to
try and get a better look at the black dots.
Three minutes later at 8:36pm Joey
called me and said the state park boat was getting close to the area, but they
didn’t know where to go exactly. I was already on the beach at the water’s edge
at this point directly above the unknown objects. I turned on my headlights and
the hazard lights to my truck to help guide the boat to the area, and I knew
that if the objects were people, it would help them to know that we were aware
of their situation, and that help was on the way. I heard Joey on the radio
tell the boat to go towards Brian’s red truck parked on the beach with the flashing
emergency lights and to start looking about 500 yards off-shore. I watched the
boat coming closer through my binoculars. I was starting to get excited over a
potential rescue, when I watched through my binoculars a disheartening sight as
the state park boat passed right by the objects in the water. It was at that
moment that I saw arms and hands extended above their heads waving frantically
at the boat. ...
.
It was at that moment (8:41pm) that I got a call on my cell
phone from a person who happened to be on that boat, and who happened to have
my cell phone number. He had heard on the radio that I was on the beach and that
I knew the location of the objects. I then had a 1 minute and 52 second
conversation with him where I gave him directions of where to go exactly in the
boat. This seemed to be the longest 1 minute and 52 seconds of my life. The
boat appeared to me to keep going right past where it looked like the people
were at, but they simply couldn’t see them in the large waves. My depth
perception of how far out from the shore the victims were was hard to determine
because it was getting dark. I had the boat turning in all sorts of directions
to get back to where the victims were located. At one point, it appeared to me
that they were pretty much on top of the objects, and I frustratingly asked on
the phone how they could not see them. It was at that moment that the person on
the other end of the phone simply said, “Ok, yes, we see them…bye” and hung up.
It was later that I found out they had to get within 50 to 100 feet to the
victims with the boat in order to spot them in the huge waves. They also said they
finally spotted them pretty much at the same time they were close enough to
start hearing their screams. Giving directions to the boat from shore in the
near-darkness from 1/2 mile or more away to where the victims were at was like
telling them where to find a needle in a haystack.
It was extremely lucky, or maybe divine guidance, that we
were in the right spot at the right time to spot the first two girls who were
rescued. Had we been one mile north, or one mile south, we would not have seen
them. Somehow we
ended up in the foothills at the closest point we could have been to the
victims in the water. I know that many other people were driving around the
lake also looking, and many others were spotting from the foothills from
various locations. In other searches, I’ve ended up being the person farthest
away from where people were actually found, so you never know. I’m just happy
that in this search somebody (out of everybody looking) was able to spot them.
After the victims were pulled out of the water into the boat,
I drove back up the beach to the highway about 300 yards away. I saw there was
a couple of law enforcement vehicles parked on the highway with their lights
flashing. I don’t know exactly at what point they had arrived, but I told them
I was going back into the foothills to spot the other object I had seen.
I joined up with Joey on the hillside and I re-spotted
through my binoculars the other object out in the lake several miles off shore.
I thought it would be strange if the other object ended up being something
because it was so far away from the first group, but that was the only lead we
had at the moment. Joey got on the radio and told the search and rescue command
to send another boat our direction because we had spotted another object. I
recall in my mind wanting the boats to get to the area quicker, but the water
was super rough, and in an emergency situation minutes seem like hours. It
wasn’t actually very long before another state park boat showed up in the area
near the shore where the first two victims were found. Joey got on the radio
and told them which direction to start heading towards the second unknown object
as I continued to watch with the binoculars.
At this point it had gotten too dark to physically see the
object anymore through the binoculars. Luckily, there was a landmark on shore
between me and the object so I knew exactly which direction the object was, and
approximately how far out in the lake it was. I didn’t move from my position,
and continued to give Joey course corrections for the boat to head towards in
order to arrive at the target area.
Another State Park boat in the meantime had heard the chatter
on the radio and also started heading in the direction that the first boat was
heading. It wasn’t long before both boats basically arrived at the same time to
the last known location of the object when we heard on the radio that it was
only a float tube that they had found. For a few seconds, we were disheartened
thinking that we had used up valuable time and resources chasing down this
object. But then, we suddenly heard on the radio that there were three people
with this float tube, and we were elated. But then a few seconds later, we were
right back down again when we heard they had begun life-saving aid to the victims,
and we knew it wasn’t good.
At this point, it had gotten too dark to see anything in the
lake with binoculars, so I told Joey I was going back to the marina to take one
of our rental boats out to look for the last victims. I still didn’t know at
this point how many more victims there were still in the water. I drove quickly
to the marina and checked in with command, and they sent somebody to come with
me in the boat that had a radio. I grabbed the boat keys, life jackets, spot
light, electric cords, and all-weather jackets and started running down the
docks in the marina full-speed to get onto our boat parked at the docks……We
started to head out of the marina just as we saw one of the state park boats
coming into the marina with the victims from the second group of people. This
was an eerie sight, but it reminded us that we still needed to get out there.
We set course for the search area in our 20 foot ski boat. We
tried to go as fast as we could, but the huge waves were just beating the boat.
I remember looking at the driver’s console and seeing it shake violently each
time we hit a wave. It got to the point that it looked like the console was
going to break apart, but luckily it didn’t, and we arrived near to the area
where the first two victims were found to begin our search. The water was a
little bit calmer as we got to the north end of the lake because the wind had begun
to calm down by that time.
We decided to slowly search in a zig-zag pattern heading
eastward to where the second group of victims had been found. We had a 4
million candle light power spot light, but it seemed like it was a kid’s toy
flashlight because the water absorbed the majority of the light. The
effectiveness of the spotlight was only about 50-100 feet. There were many
objects in the water such as tumbleweeds that would falsely get our hearts
pumping briefly as the spot light passed over them. We also used the light from
the full moon’s reflection on the water to use as a sort of spotlight to also see
objects in the water.
The whole time we were searching, we were trying to figure
out in our minds where the rest of the victims might be located at based on the
information we had at the time, and the wind directions from the previous
couple of hours. We had been told on the radio that there were two remaining
victims still in the water. I remember thinking at one point that there was no
way we were going to find anything on the vastness of the lake in the dark only
being able to see 100 feet at a time. Bear Lake is 109 square miles, and the
only thing we knew for sure is that we were looking in the north 60 square
miles of the lake. I’ve been out on searches like this before on a boat in the
dark, and you have a mixture of feelings such as hope in one moment and
hopelessness in another, along with urgency and anxiety all mixed together.
At some point, several helicopters had joined the search. We
had heard on the radio that the capsized boat had been found by a helicopter,
and that a state park boat was in that area searching the debris field. We
could see where the helicopter was hovering above that area along with the flashing
lights of the state park boat, so we decided to slowly head in that direction
in a zig-zag pattern. I don’t know how long we had been out searching total,
but it had probably been 30 or 45 minutes. Our hearts jumped suddenly when the
spot light passed over an object in the water right in front of us. I sped the
boat up a little to get closer, and within seconds, we realized that it was a
person. We could tell that it was a teenage girl and that she had a life jacket
on. I quickly stopped the boat next to the victim and pulled her out of the
water right away. I could tell the victim was very cold and unresponsive, but I
started CPR as I had been trained from having had a coast guard captain’s
license in the past. My partner in the boat stayed on the radio calling for a
state park boat to come to us as quickly as possible, and he also kept the
spotlight shined so I could see to help the victim. The state park boat arrived
very quickly and we immediately handed over the victim and they took over the
CPR. Somebody on that boat handed us a set of night vision goggles and said the
last victim was probably in that area, and then they headed back to the marina
as quickly as they could
We continued to
search for the last victim. Another volunteer search boat had joined us at that
point. We stayed within a couple hundred feet of each other and began to search
again. It wasn’t but a few minutes that my partner shouted out to me that he
had seen something with the night vision goggles. He hurried towards the area
and immediately realized it was the last victim, another teenage girl. She was wearing a life jacket, but she was
also unresponsive and cold. I immediately pulled her from the water into our
boat. Somebody from the other boat nearby (who I think basically spotted the
victim at the same time), jumped into our boat and began CPR. We radioed for another
state park boat to come towards us, and they arrived within minutes. We handed
over the victim and they rushed her to the marina…..
Looking back, it’s always easy to think of how we would have
done things differently. I ask myself if we somehow could have saved more. We
just need to tell ourselves that these victims were actually found relatively
quicker than most other victims in Bear Lake in similar situations that I can
think of. The other factor was the sheer amount of people missing in the water
at once. The most that I’m aware of that’s been searched for in the water at
Bear Lake at any one-time is two people. To have seven in the water scattered
over many square miles was overwhelming for everybody.
The victims were all wearing life jackets, but we just
couldn’t get to everybody in time. The medical people told us later that if the
surviving victims would have been found just minutes later, they probably
wouldn’t have survived. We know that minutes made a difference for some. I
don’t know why some survived, and some didn’t. The only solace we have is
knowing that three survived when we very easily could have lost all seven by a
matter of minutes. I consider the sequence of events that occurred which saved
the lives of the three to be a miracle. …
This rescue effort was a team effort, and everybody involved did
an excellent job during the organized chaos. There were people involved from every
government agency, medical staff, and many volunteers. This is the worst
accident that the lake has ever seen and it’s affected our community forever……My
heart and prayers goes out the friends and families of the victims affected
through this tragic boat accident.
Brian
Hirschi
6-4-15
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