Shannon Fiecke of the Shakopee Valley News reports:

Scott County sheriff’s deputy Bret Krick was out patrolling Lake O’Dowd on a weekend earlier this summer when he spotted a teen sitting atop the seat of a pontoon, his back toward the water.

Riding in such a fashion in Minnesota is illegal, so Krick stopped the watercraft. There were about a dozen teens aboard and the deputy immediately smelled alcohol.

Krick gave preliminary breath tests to the teens, and the driver’s father (the boat’s owner) was called to take the pontoon home.
The father arrived and Krick packed up to follow him when he heard the pontoon’s engine throttle and then a thump.

It just sounded like the pontoon hit a rock. Krick got ready to throttle up, when a kid’s head popped up out of the water in front of him.

The 16-year-old Shakopee boy told Krick he was all right, but it was quickly obvious he wasn’t as Krick assisted the bleeding boy into his boat.

The teen had been cut by the propeller. One of his arms was cut to the bone and fractured, and a foot was sliced approximately 3 inches clear through, down from the webbing between his big toe and index toe.

It appears the boy had been hanging onto the ladder as the boat pulled away, the driver or passengers unaware he was back there.

Krick called an ambulance, which met them at the house and took the teen to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis for surgery.

“It was ugly,” Krick said, and the boy is lucky he didn’t lose a toe.

The deputy believes the accident occurred because the teen was under the influence of alcohol and hanging onto the ladder when he shouldn’t have. The boy apparently had gone outside the pontoon’s railing to relieve himself.

“The boat started out slowly. Why he didn’t holler, ‘I’m back here’ ...” Krick said.

Krick speculates the teen, being under the influence, probably thought he just could crawl back on and then wasn’t able to climb back on soon enough and couldn’t hang on.

It appears the boy’s left foot slipped off the ladder and into the propeller. Krick theorizes the pain likely caused him to lose his grip and he was then sucked into the water.

After the teen was cared for, Krick issued citations to eight minors for underage drinking, including the female teen driver. Another four hadn’t consumed alcohol. The teens who had been drinking were released to their parents.

Deputies believe the kids sneaked alcohol onto the pontoon without the owner’s knowing it, Krick said.

The teens aren’t named in this story because they are minors. A call to the owners of the pontoon wasn’t immediately returned.

Krick believes there is a lot of underage consumption happening on area lakes that goes uncaught.

In fact, he was patrolling that Saturday night in an area, near a rope swing, where an underage drinking incident had occurred the previous day. Deputies had been called out that day for a medical call, in which a girl had a piece of wood protruding from her arm.

Krick hopes the pontoon accident, which occurred about 9 p.m. July 11, reminds people to be more careful on the lake.

“People need to remember, yes, boats are a recreational tool and fun to be on, but there’s also an element of danger,” he said. “When you get in a fender bender with a car, you check the damage, ask everyone if they’re OK. With a boat, you get thrown out into the water. You can’t just walk away, Everything is tougher on a boat.”

Krick says if he hadn’t followed behind the pontoon and stopped to pack up, “that kid would have been out there to bleed to death.”

“If I would have been in the lead, and left before them, nobody might have found him until it was too late,” he said. “He’s a very lucky boy. It could have been a lot worse.”

Shannon Fiecke is a staff writer for the Shakopee Valley News. She can be reached at sfiecke@swpub.com.