Four rowers drowned in the United States in 2021: the deadliest year in modern US rowing history. Two of them were college students rowing with a University club team, like the young college student who drowned four years ago at Northwestern University. One was a fifteen-year-old student rowing with his school team. All of them died in the kind of routine accidents that continue to take rowers lives.
One was an experienced rower who fell from his racing shell and drowned while rowing alone on a quiet river. He wasn’t wearing a life-jacket. The Northwestern freshman caught his oar in the water and was thrown from his boat after the oar hit him in the face. He drowned before teammates could reach him. He wasn’t wearing a life-jacket. Two university students drowned after their racing shell capsized in cold water on a small lake in Iowa. They were learning to row in heavy winds and chop that were — arguably — within USRowing’s safety guidelines. They were not wearing life-jackets. The high school freshman who drowned was rowing under relatively benign conditions, accompanied by a coaching launch, and close to the boathouse on a relatively narrow river. He was an epileptic who knew his condition would prevent him from getting a driver’s license. He was allowed to row because he loved it and loved being part of his school’s team, but no one thought to protect him with a PFD.
USRowing’s Safety Video warns that “athletes have been unnecessarily killed and injured… due to lax standards and or enforcement of rules,” yet it still has no minimum safety standards, enforces no rules, and refuses to recommend life-jackets even under extremely dangerous, life-threatening conditions.
As long as this continues, rowers will continue to die. In the words of USRowing’s Safety Video, they will be “unnecessarily killed and injured… due to lax standards and/or enforcement of rules.