Tragedy at Northwestern

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Jul 19, 2014
2,390
48
Madison, WI
I know this is not softball related, but,

Saturday my DS' rowing team, Milwaukee School of Engineering, hosted a 3 team regatta in Milwaukee with Marquette and Northwestern.

Monday, one of the Northwestern freshmen who had raced on Saturday drowned during practice.

Body of 19-year-old Northwestern crew member recovered - Evanston Review

OF course DS and his team are upset. The Northwestern team are devastated. I don't want to even imagine what his parents are going through.

Not sure why they had freshmen practicing in strong currents.

But, remember sports can be dangerous.

But then, I remember what my younger brother, who has had a lot of bicycle injuries, said. It is better to take a risk doing something you love than have a heart attack from being a couch potato.
 
Jul 19, 2014
2,390
48
Madison, WI
Prayers for the family.

Pretty sure that Northwestern lost a basketball player this year also.

It's been a bad year for Northwestern athletics,. that's for sure.

I looked at the rowing on Reddit. Interesting stuff.

To make a long story short, although safety is better than it used to be, the rowers don't wear any flotation devices during practices, even in cold weather.

I hadn't realized until today that there are some parts of the world where relatively unobtrusive flotation devices are mandatory during practices in cold weather.

Very few rowers use those, because those flotation devices are NEVER used in races.

All rowing teams require all rowers to be proficient swimmers, but apparently this guy went under right away, so it didn't matter how good a swimmer he was. The visibility in that canal is almost zero. It is a sanitary canal, and the stories I've heard are that rowing in that canal can be truly disgusting.

Another rower and the coach were treated for hypothermia after jumping into the water to try to save the guy.

EDIT TO ADD: From what I have read today,. at least some of the flotation devices some rowers use in practice would NOT have saved this kid, as some require the rower to inflate the device after landing in the water, and in this case the rower went under right away and didn't come out alive, and was found 14 hours later.

Speculation is that he was thrown out of the boat by a missed stroke, which is extremely rare. There are rowers who have rowed for a lifetime and never even heard of this happening. And very bad luck to be thrown into very cold water with strong currents that kept him under, horrible visibility, etc. An amazingly rare confluence of events led to this sad situation.

My thoughts are with the rowing community at large, esp. the Northwestern rowers, and to the poor family.

I do know of a few cases in the 1970s, when safety was not as strong, where college rowers drowned. According to DS, just about every case of a rower drowning since then has been when a power boat crashed into a racing shell.

Rowers drowning in 1-boat accidents pretty much hasn't happened since a few cases in the 1970s.
 
Last edited:
Jan 27, 2010
1,871
83
NJ
My niece is a D1 NCAA champion and a very proficient swimmer. I never imagined this could happen but then the shock of sub 50F water could cause someone to literally freeze up. God Speed to the rower.
 

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