Reasons to Wear a Life Preserver

There’s no good argument anymore for not wearing a helmet when you ride a motorcycle. The notion that a human being’s hair flowing in the breeze on the open road represents some sort of romantic freedom pales in comparison to the notion of rattled skulls and squished brains. The same goes for seat belts. You wear your seatbelt, right? Because if you don’t, and you get in an accident, you can get tossed from the car. You can go through the windshield at whatever speed you were traveling—say, 40, 50, 60 miles an hour.

The other day, I was driving home on I-95 when one of these incredible thunderstorms hit. From a distance, I could see the clouds reaching down from the sky, as if to take a bite out of the horizon. Then, heading down a long hill, I could see that the cars headed back up the other side of the hill were in a bit of a fog. That fog turned out to be thundering rain and winds accompanied by hail and disturbingly close flashes of lightning. Drivers put their hazards on and inched along.

I saw a motorcyclist pulled off the road under an underpass. He was waiting out the storm. Surely you’ve seen this too, right? That kind of weather just doesn’t work on two wheels with no roof.

Wearing seatbelts and helmets became the norm because they became the law. But over time, I’d like to think that people have been able to understand the benefit. Maybe not wearing them makes you feel wild and free, but it’s just not worth the risk. The same goes for that biker under the bridge—he knows riding in the rain is not worth the risk.

This same point can be applied to boating, and to wearing a life preserver. I like the slightly more antiquated term “life preserver” because it’s so literal. Hey, what does that ugly orange device do?  It keeps you from dying, dude. The new thing is to call it a “personal flotation device,” or a PFD.

I am a boater. I used to be a motor boater, and lately, I’m more of a paddler. I never liked wearing my PFD. My dad is a boater, too, and a few years ago as I was preparing for a canoe trip, he asked if I planned to wear my PFD. I said that no, I didn’t. I planned to have it in the canoe with me, but wearing it cramped my style and my comfort. Besides, this trip would be down a relatively calm river, and I can swim. The point of the PFD, my dad said, is to keep your head above water, even if you are unconscious. The thing is designed to preserve your life.

I took note of what he said, but I didn’t wear my PFD on that trip down a narrow, serpentine river in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. As my canoe partner and I went under a little footbridge on a sharp curve, I pushed off a pylon in attempt to swing the rear of the canoe around. That threw us off balance, and a second later my buddy and I were in the water. Water that was over our heads and moving more swiftly than I would have expected. Water the color of dark tea, stained that way by the pine needles.

So if I’d hit my head on that little bridge on my way into the water, I could have easily sunk to the bottom and drowned. I would not have been preserved. I told my dad the story when I got back; he is not the sort to say “I told you so.”

I’m hoping the young guys who found themselves all wet in the Big Gunpowder Falls near Bel Air Road last week take a similar lesson from their experience. As reported on on May 18, three teenagers were riding in an inflatable raft when it capsized, and they got separated. All three survived.

As reported by Emily Kimball: “Jay L. Ringgold, a Baltimore County police spokesman, said the men did not take necessary safety precautions. ‘It's unusually rapid due to the recent heavy rains,’ Ringgold said. ‘These gentlemen didn't have life preservers on.’”

Ringgold was being generous there. Taking safety precautions would have, first of all, included not even sticking a toe in the river when it was muddy brown with rushing rainwater. It would have included wearing life preservers. I can relate to the lesson these guys learned last week, because I did some dumb stuff at that age. Dumb stuff that involved the rapids on the Big Gunpowder, in fact. Up in Harford County, someone dies in Rocks State Park almost every year. Sometimes falling from the King and Queen’s Seat, sometimes jumping, and sometimes treating the Class 4 rapids there like a Mickey Mouse water park.

Getting in your car every day carries some risk. But you need to get to work or school, right? No one needs to get in a boat these days, for the most part. People go out on the water for fun. But dying while recreating is so pointless. Even if it means wearing that ugly orange vest, you should think ahead, and preserve yourself.