A simple jump off the back of a boat turned tragic in Newport News last week, as a man trying to retrieve a fishing net drifted away from the boat and lost his life in the water near Buckroe Beach.
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission says the 58-year-old man, Keith Thomas Henley, was fishing aboard his boat in the Bay when he went into the water to get a dip net that had been dropped overboard. He was not wearing a life jacket, according to his friend, a passenger on the boat. The boat was anchored.
Conditions were mild at the time, with 1-3-foot seas and 10 mile-per-hour winds, according to Coast Guard Sector Virginia.
The passenger saw Henley in the water, then drifting away from his Parker cabin model boat on Thursday. The friend lost sight of him around 12:30 p.m., and tried to get the anchor up and the boat running, but struggled due to lack of familiarity with the mechanism to raise anchor or start the vessel (it had a forward and rear control). By the time the boat was underway, it was too late; Henley was no longer visible above water.
The Coast Guard deployed a 45-foot Response Boat-Medium crew and an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter to search for the man. Multiple local emergency crews also responded. An Urgent Marine Information Broadcast to Mariners was issued for other boaters to keep a lookout.
The search continued for more than 24 hours, until the Coast Guard suspended its search at 1:40 p.m. Friday. By that point, the joint search effort had covered more than 700 square miles and a combined 80 man hours.
Along with the Coast Guard, the Hampton, Norfolk and Poquoson fire departments, Hampton Police Department, Virginia’s Marine Resources Commission and Department of Wildlife Resources and the Chambers Helo Support Command all participated in the search.
On Saturday, a charter boat crew found Henley’s body near Factory Point and Hampton Fire and Rescue recovered him.
And it’s essential for all passengers on a boat to be informed about what to do in case of an emergency, especially if the captain is incapacitated or away from the boat.
In a heartbreaking 2022 case on the Potomac River, a father and son both drowned after the boy and his sister, swimming off the boat, began to struggle in the water. The girl, 12, was saved by good Samaritans (who happened to be boating instructors). The father jumped in to save the boy, 10. The mother, who was caring for a toddler on the boat, didn’t know how to operate the boat and watched helplessly as the struggling swimmers and the boat drifted further apart. The father and son didn’t make it.
The boating instructors who saved the young girl in that case shared with Chesapeake Bay Magazine the lessons learned, including making sure a second person knows how to operate the boat.
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission agrees, and also says everyone aboard should know how to hail the Coast Guard on VHF Channel 16. Spokesman Zach Widgeon also emphasizes knowing “where your type IV throwable device is and having it readily available.” He goes on to say, “Life jackets are a must when entering the water, as it’s extremely hard to predict currents before entering.”
