TEENAGE TUBER DROWNS IN THE FIVE FALLS

Section IV of the Chatooga near Clayton, GA : June 13, 1992

Gradient 45 fpm; Level 2.3' (Medium-High); Classification IV-V

SUMMARY On Saturday, June 13 1992 four teenage boys from Clayton, attempted to inner tube the Five Falls on Section IV of the Chatooga River . Three swam at Corkscrew, and 17 year-old Jason Kilby was swept into Jawbone. His body was found four days later approximately one mile downstream.

DESCRIPTION: The Five Falls are the most difficult rapids on Section IV of the Chatooga. The gradient in that area approaches 100 feet per mile, creating class IV-V rapids. A water level of 2.3 feet is approaching the cutoff level for commercial operators running the river. Sometime the previous week four local boys decided to inner tube the Five Falls illegally. Late Saturday afternoon, after a baseball game, they hiked into the Camp Creek access about a half-mile above the Falls, and put in around 5:00 pm. None of them wore PFD's.

The boys apparently swam in Class IV Entrance Rapid but managed to regain their tubes. Three of them then tried to run Corkscrew Rapid, a steep Class IV, and were swept into the Right Crack of Crack in the Rock. This drop has a nasty hydraulic at this level. After being trashed in the hole, two of the boys made it to shore and warned the forth boy not to run. They saw Jason Kilby, still  conscious, entering Class V Jawbone Rapid.

The Rabun County Rescue Squad went out that evening to start the search. Several of them got lost and spent the night out without water or food. The victim's family is held in high regard in Rabun County , and the next day there were hundreds of volunteers on both banks of the river below the Five Falls . Local boaters and guides tried to discourage the use of grappling hooks, but despite these efforts at least six were lost in the Five Falls area over the next three days. The body was found on Wednesday the 17th in a pool below Possum Creek Beach by a safety boater and a local paddler running with a commercial raft trips. This was about a mile below where most volunteers were searching. The guides secured the body while the safety boater went upstream to notify rescue squad members. The squad rafted downstream to the site and transported the body across Lake Tugaloo .

AUTHOR: Rick Bigbee

ANALYSIS:

1) The boys don't understand the dangers of swift water, dressed inappropriately, and lacked safety gear. They simply didn't know what they were getting into.

2) The Forest Service does a good job of posting regulations, but the Camp Creek access is out of the way, rarely used, and thus difficult to monitor. Late on a Saturday afternoon most visitor activity is in the Bull Sluice - Route 76 Bridge area and it's understandable how the boys could slip onto the river undetected.

3) Because the victim was a local, both the Chatahoochee National Forest and the Raybun County Rescue Squad felt the need to lead the recovery efforts. Unfortunately, paddlers could not monitor every volunteer in the Five Falls area. Although the Rescue Squad said it had accounted for all of the grappling hooks used, four were recovered by local boaters in the weeks after the search. There are probably several others in the river, posing a hazard to paddlers. Had the victim been a boater, recovery attempts would have most likely been performed by the river community.

4) The Chattoga River forms the boundary between South Carolina and , making it a multi-jurisdictional river. This was a real hinderance in this incident. Communication between the various agencies and groups of volunteers was at times poor, hampering and the recovery attempts. There was also lots of inaccurate reporting by the news media.

CONCLUSION:

Most of us were guilty of taking unnecessary risks when we were teenagers, and its unfortunate that Jason Kilby and his friends paid so dearly for their acts. Hopefully increased education by paddlers, outfitters, and the Forest Service can prevent these tragedies in the future.