Search continues for missing boater

Local emergency crews continued searching Wednesday morning for a man who was reportedly thrown from a boat on Weiss Lake Tuesday evening. The accident occurred around 6:30 p.m.

The man has been identified as Jerry Coker, 67, of Adairsville, Ga. A body has not been found at this time, however.

According to reports, the man apparently struck a log. A person who lives in the Savannah Place Subdivision area off Money's Bend Road in Cedar Bluff called 9-1-1 stating that he heard a loud noise which he thought was a car crash.

The caller said he saw a person in the water circling the subject in a boat. He heard a cry for help and attempted to assist by traveling to the sight on his jet-ski. The man apparently already went under however.

Witness reports indicated that the man was not wearing a lifejacket and failed to use his killswitch. The boat later hit the pier and stalled in the water.

From the tag number on the boat, authorities believe the boater to be from Bartow County, Ga.

The search for the man continued Tuesday evening until around 1 a.m. and resumed Wednesday morning, reports said.

At this time, authorities do not belive there were others in the boat at the time of the accident.

Responding agencies included the Cedar Bluff Police Department, Cedar Bluff Fire

Department, Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, Cherokee County Sheriff's Office Lake Patrol, Cherokee County Rescue Squad and Alabama Marine Police.

http://www.cherokeeherald.com/view/full_story/7476371/article-Search-continues-for-missing-boater-?instance=home_latest_2nd_left

Jeeze - talk about a classic case of OOPS - sorry, I forgot to hook up my kill switch.  And the boat ended up smacking into someones dock?  The double whammy.  Hate to be that guy - be all dead and everything, go to meet your maker and get asked "Why are you here?"

And he'd have to say  "I forgot to use the kill switch, so now I'm drowned and my boat smacked into the dock."   Outstanding.

Seriously though, as I was reading the article I realized that the last time I had my boat out on big water and was running here and there in 20 mph winds and medium sized waves, I didn't have my kill switch attatched.

So thanks for the wake up call.  A few weeks ago I got away with doing something stupid and more recently, this guy Jerry didn't

I have never seen anyone on the 11 lakes that I fish (4 to 204 acres) wear a PFD .... except me. As we discussed a while back in a PFD thread, even if you can swim, some of us are getting older and may not have the upper body strength to pull ourselves back in the boat. I live in a popular retirement location and most of the anglers in these lakes are in their 60s or older. Old angler+no PFD=bad news...

I had a very similar thing happen to me with my wife on board in march on my favorite lake and all I can say is thank god for kill switches and life vests because the log was submerged we never saw it and hit it at roughly 40mph,You want to talk about a dead stop!!

I wish it was easier to help people understand just how important this stuff is and not take these thing's for granted,

you already have them on the boat use them!!!!!!!

Thoughts and prayer's out to their family.

Wonder if he filled out a float plan...