ROGERS -- The Beaver Lake Fire Department doesn't have a boat.
The western gateway to Beaver Lake runs right through Beaver Lake Fire Department's service area. The department covers an area from Rogers, past the Arkansas 12 bridge toward Hobbs State Park, where fire protection is picked up by Rocky Branch Fire Department.
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Rocky Branch doesn't have a boat either.
Fire chiefs at both departments, spurred by fatal incidents on Beaver Lake this year, say they want to change that.
John Whisenant, department chief, ticked off a list incidents better served by a boat.
There was a man who fell off his pontoon boat and was stranded on a rock shelf. There was the hypothermic patient in January who pointed to a vehicle in the water and mumbled about a baby in the car. It was too deep to wade out to the car and so a boat was called from Arkansas Game & Fish. The patient was confused and there was no child in the car, but firefighters spent an hour worried about that possibility, Whisenant said.
And there was the collision between two personal watercraft near Prairie Creek Marina on June 11. Volunteers used a borrowed boat to get to the wreck called in by 14-year-old and 16-year-old fishermen. A woman and an 8-year-old girl were checked for injuries, but a 14-year-old girl was pronounced dead at the hospital, despite firefighters' efforts at CPR.
Firefighters took the loss hard.
"Every patient is important to us, but a child even more so," Whisenant said.
The department had plans for a rescue boat, but the combination of the tragic accident and the community support kicked a plan into gear.
A friend of the teens who made the 911 call started a fundraising page on GoFundMe.com for the department and raised $900. The department was awarded a $10,000 grant, a $6,000 private donation and held a community garage sale that raised $4,000. They're nearly to their $27,000 goal, Whisenant said. The money for the boat will be all private donations, not tax dollars, he said. Prairie Creek Marina has volunteered a slip for the boat.
There are seven fire departments on Beaver Lake, Whisenant said. Of those, Avoca and Northeast Benton County on the north side of the lake and Hickory Creek in Lowell have boats. Arkansas Game and Fish patrols the lake. The Benton County Sheriff's Office has four boats and three personal watercraft for patrol, a spokesman said. One deputy patrols the lake full-time in the summer and several others are trained to respond.
On the morning of Nov. 21, as the wind whipped across Beaver Lake, members of the Beaver Lake and Rocky Branch fire departments attended their fourth rescue boat demonstration of the year. First they looked at inflatable boats, but you can't do CPR in an inflatable boat, Whisenant said.
Inflatable boats, even military grade boats, are not made for Beaver Lake, said Jerry Oliver, chief of Rocky Branch Fire Department.
"They're not big water boats like what we have out here," Oliver said.
Tony Lumpkin, president of RescueONE, visited with the departments, pointing out modifications he designed for the Model 1673X2 boat. He designed a flat-bottomed rescue boat in 1993 after rescuers shopping at his boat dealership pointed out flaws with what he had in stock. That company sold and he started production on the new model two years ago.
The custom boat kit with lights and motor costs between $24,000 and $27,000 and takes a three- to five-week lead time to build, Lumpkin said.
Lumpkin is slightly offended when someone calls his design a boat. It's a modular water rescue system, he says. The boat can link to other boats in a formation, there are hooks and cleats to attach equipment and a diver/victim support platform gives crews in the water a way to lift and tip a person into the boat -- even a person strapped to a backboard -- without grabbing and hoisting them over the side.
Without the platform it would take five rescuers on the boat to load a victim, Whisenant said. With it they could respond with three, an important issue for volunteer fire departments.
"In a volunteer setting you might not get five rescuers," he said.
The department already has portable pumps that would let firefighters use the boat to pull water from the lake and fight fire on the bank from the water, Whisenant said.
Both fire chiefs said they are looking at purchasing the same model boat so they can cross train. They can do CPR on the boat, and it will fit under the low clearance on the Arkansas 12 bridge during flooding. They can also link the boats if need be, they said.
Spring break is their self-imposed deadline.
The water may be cold, but it is the first lake holiday where people head out to enjoy Beaver Lake, Oliver said.
"The worst thing is the world for us is to feel helpless, to feel we could help if we could get there," Oliver said.
Often the two fire departments are not called for water emergencies because they have no way to get on the water, but they provide medical care for those brought to shore in their districts.
That is why Rocky Branch was called an hour after a boating accident on March 24. Five young people fell in the water after a canoe and paddle boat capsized during a spring break family outing. One made it to shore and called for help. One of the group, a 21-year-old mother, drowned. Searchers looked two weeks before recovering her body.
Oliver got to a lookout spot in time to see a boat from the Sheriff's Office pull up to the sandbar where three of the group were waiting for rescue. The deputy had to come from Centerton, Oliver said. He and his crew could have been there in 10 or 15 minutes. The sandbar the three were waiting on was within sight of where he could have put in a boat, he said.
Other marine units are about 30 minutes from the Rocky Branch area by water, Oliver said.
He is planning on an early spring grant and raising private money for a boat.
The Rocky Branch Fire Department is just off Arkansas 303 and could launch from Rocky Branch Marina, two miles to the east or Coppermine Lodge, two miles to the west, giving them land access to water on either side of the Larue Community peninsula, he said.
There have been 61 boating accidents on Beaver Lake, with seven fatalities, and 17 drownings on Beaver Lake in the last five years, Whisenant said.
While there's no guarantee a quick response would have prevented the spring break drowning or saved the life of the girl who died in the personal watercraft accident, the fire chiefs said their job is to try.
"Getting there quicker is always better," Oliver said.
NW News on 11/29/2015