Fatal seadoo crash on Okanagan Lake not off-duty cop’s fault: B.C. police watchdog

A fatal seadoo crash involving an off-duty police officer and his friend was not a case of negligence, but rather a “very unfortunate accident,” according to a report released on Wednesday by B.C.’s police watchdog.

The Independent Investigation Office of B.C. (IIO) started looking into the Aug. 5, 2021, crash due to the fact that an RCMP officer was involved.

Evidence collected and analyzed during the investigation showed that at 10:30 a.m., on Aug. 5, the off-duty RCMP officer rented a seadoo for himself and his teenage son at a spot on Okanagan Lake in Penticton.

He brought a friend along, and the friend rented a Seadoo for themselves.

A little more than an hour later, the RCMP officer called 911 to report that his Seadoo crashed into the friend.

According to the account given at the time of the crash, the IIO said the off-duty Mountie and his son were on one Seadoo, travelling behind the friend, when the friend took a hard left.

That’s when the off-duty RCMP officer reportedly T-boned the friend.  The IIO said that information collected at the scene indicates that the friend was “unconscious and face down” immediately after impact.

He was turned around and “regained consciousness shortly after but was in extreme pain,” according to the IIO.

He had suffered cardiac arrest while in transit and once he was in the hospital he underwent surgery. Ultimately, however, he died.

The autopsy confirmed that the cause of death was “severe blunt force trauma to the left side of the (affected person’s) upper body.”

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There was no sign of intoxication and mechanical evidence showed that the RCMP officer’s craft struck the friend’s craft at an approximately perpendicular angle, roughly on its midline and rode up and over at the location of the operator’s seat.

“It’s not possible to determine what the reason was for (the friend’s) maneuver, but it would have left (the off-duty officer) with few options and very little time to react,” reads the report.

Apart from the requirement that the operator of the watercraft take reasonable care to avoid collisions, the IIO report said maritime rules include two requirements potentially relevant to the circumstances of this case.

Firstly, it is the duty of an overtaking vessel to give way to the vessel being overtaken. Secondly, a vessel must give way to another vessel approaching from ahead and to the right, reads the report.

So, while it was the officer’s responsibility to not crash, there was little chance he’d have been able to do so, the IIO found.

“It appears that he in fact tried to do so, but with no ability to brake and little space to maneuver was unable to. There is no reason to conclude that any negligence or improper operation was involved and no fault or blame can be attached to the (RCMP officer) for what was in fact simply a very unfortunate accident.”

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