As Incredulous As It Sounds, "They Never Even Apologized"

I gotta be honest with you: I rarely think about being involved in a boat crash, even though I've had friends over the years who have been in them. That may all change, though, after today. I this morning read about a couple of crashes that truly are hard for me to wrap my head around just how they ever could have occurred in the first place.

In a mishap from this past August (left), a bass boat, carrying two passengers, T-boned a pontoon boat, with three passengers, on High Rock Lake. Investigators said the 42-year-old driver of the bass boat "was trying to level off (trim) his boat after getting it up to speed and did not see the pontoon boat that was in front of him." My question is:  How do you not see a pontoon boat in front of you?

Fortunately, there were no deaths in this incident, but there were injuries, and people did have to go to the hospital. Meanwhile, the driver of the bass boat was charged with one count of reckless boat operation, a misdemeanor.

In a February 2020 incident on Lake Okeechobee, as reported on BassFan, bass pro Russ Lane (right) escaped injury but had his boat damaged during a crash in which an older couple he characterized as "perhaps in their 70s" hit him.

Lane, at the time, was on the final practice day for an MLF Bass Pro Tour event. He was fishing when he spotted a boat about 150 yards away veer toward him, traveling at a relatively high speed. When it closed to about 100 yards, he wondered whether the driver's intent was to pass between him and the vegetation he was working. At 50 yards, he came to the terrifying conclusion that the driver somehow had failed to see him.

"My first reaction was to kind of hunker down, but it was coming straight for me at the trolling motor at about 30 yards," said Lane. "I ran and jumped to the back deck, and when it closed half that distance, I think that's when the driver saw me. He hooked his boat to try and miss mine, but then it was coming straight at me on the back deck. I jumped back to the front, and I guess it was in mid-leap that they made impact.

"It threw so much water that it felt like a big wave crashing on me. It knocked me to my knees, and I was halfway out of the boat but was able to hold on and pull myself back in."

He said the occupants of the other boat, a 20-foot Triton, had a really weird response to what had happened: "They never even apologized," he explained. "They could've easily killed me or broke me up, but it didn't seem to faze them at all. I told them I didn't know what to do other than call the cops, so the next 5 hours were all about filling out reports and whatnot."

Lane, who runs a Phoenix, contacted the company president, who immediately got a new rig on the road to Okeechobee. Meanwhile, MLF personnel supplied him with a league-owned boat while the Phoenix and Yamaha crews onsite went to work on his busted-up craft.

"The cowling was completely smoked," he said, "but I think what saved the engine was that the Power-Poles got pushed into it, and they acted like a ramp. The other boat went over the engine."

Luckily, a lot of people jumped in to help Lane, but that in no way soothed his jitters. As he explained, "I was a complete nervous wreck. I kept hearing stuff behind me, and I couldn't focus on anything. I usually don't get rattled, but this one shook me up."

Now we know why so many people keep saying, "It's a jungle out there."