ANKS, Idaho — Two people are dead after separate rafting accidents on the Payette River. Emergency workers in Boise County were called to the first accident Saturday afternoon, when a raft holding 10 people on a family reunion hit a rapid and tipped, throwing two teenagers and a 47-year-old woman. The teens were able to make it to shore, but Sharon Irene Barclay of Lakewood, Wash. became stuck under a log and drowned. Boise County Chief Deputy Dale Rogers says the group was in the water for less than 10 minutes when the raft tipped about three miles north of Banks http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/847262.html A Washington woman drowned while rafting on the North Fork of the Payette River. Sharon Barclay of Lakewood, Wa., drowned after she was thrown from a raft in rapids and then became trapped under a log, said Boise County Chief Deputy Dale Rogers. She was wearing a life jacket. Barclay was rafting the river with family, including relatives from Nampa. She was one of five adults and five children in the raft. The family put in about 3.5 miles north of Banks. The river north of Banks has class IV and V rapids, and not water that people typically raft in. “Highly-skilled kayakers go there,” Rogers said. “Everything above Banks, you need good water skills.” Rogers said three people were thrown out of the raft just 5 or 10 minutes into the trip. Two teens were pulled back into the raft before the river split around an island. The raft went to the left of the island, while Sharon Barclay was swept to the right. http://www.idahostatesman.com/531/story/847071.html BANKS, Idaho — Two people are dead after separate rafting accidents on the Payette River. Emergency workers in Boise County were called to the first accident Saturday afternoon, when a raft holding 10 people on a family reunion hit a rapid and tipped, throwing two teenagers and a 47-year-old woman. The teens were able to make it to shore, but Sharon Irene Barclay of Lakewood, Wash. became stuck under a log and drowned. Boise County Chief Deputy Dale Rogers says the group was in the water for less than 10 minutes when the raft tipped about three miles north of Banks. http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/847262.html A Washington woman drowned while rafting on the North Fork of the Payette River; Sharon Barclay, of Lakewood, Wa., drowned after she was thrown from a raft in rapids and then became trapped under a log, said Boise County Chief Deputy Dale Rogers. She was wearing a life jacket. Barclay was rafting the river with family, including relatives from Nampa. She was one of five adults and five children in the raft. The family put in about 3.5 miles north of Banks. Rogers said the river north of Banks has class IV and V rapids, and not water that people typically raft in. “Highly-skilled kayakers go there,” Rogers said. “Everything above Banks, you need good water skills.” Rogers said three people were thrown out of the raft just 5 or 10 minutes into the trip. Two teens were pulled back into the raft before the river split around an island. The raft went to the left of the island, while Sharon Barclay was swept to the right.http://jaredjacqueandthekiddos.blogspot.com/ The Barclay Reunion On Saturday Jared and his Dad and Brothers decided that they wanted to go white water rafting up the Payette River. It is a very popular river and commonly used for rafting. Well Martin’s (Jared’s Dad) cousin Rick and his family decided that they really wanted to go too, so they all loaded up and were soo excited! They got up there rented a raft and some life jackets from some random rental place. They didn’t think they needed a guide because they have all been rafting before. So they drove up to the river where everyone was putting in at this place called Banks. However it was really crowded so they drove just up the rode a tiny bit and put in further up. Well they weren’t in the boat 5 minutes before they hit a huge rapid and it threw the whole back half of the boat out into the river. Josh fell out along with Jake and Sharon (Rick’s wife). Jake and Sharon were holding on to each other and the boat until Jake was hit in the knee by a big rock and lost his grip on everything. Then Sharon lost her grip on the boat. Meanwhile everyone in the boat was trying to sit back up and grab the ores and get everyone back in the boat but until they realize that Sharon has floated a good 20 feet away. The river was calm here though, so they weren’t really scared for her and they kept telling her to turn around, face downstream and swim to the shore. But she just held on to her life jacket and floated. She didn’t try to swim or anything. She wasn’t scared she just looked like she was enjoying floating. Well after a second the boat gets stuck on a big rock at the tip of an island and while they are trying to get off the rock Sharon floats down one side of the island and when they finally get off the rock they get sent down the other side. So they stop the raft on the shore because they thought for sure that she would have gotten out on the island. They call her and they don’t hear anything so then they jump back in the boat to see if she kept floating down the river and they get sent into this huge set of rapids where Jared falls out and was under water for about a minute. Once they get out of that they are pretty worried because if Sharon went through that she would be in trouble. So they pull off on the shore and start searching for her and running for help. Some kayakers jumped right in and start looking for her and pretty soon there are around 5o-100 people looking for her. It took an hour and a half to find her. We think she must have floated backward and hit her head on a log and then the log’s current pulled her under and she drowned. It was horrible. When her husband found out he passed out and hit his head on the cement. She was 48 years old and has 3 girls and 1 boy ranging from 12 to 24. Her husband Rick just returned from serving in Iraq. My heart goes out to Rick and his children. It just absolutely breaks your heart. Posted by Jacque Barclay at 8:00 PM 0 comments Thank you for your condolences. I just wanted to add a few details to this tragedy to help other people understand. Everyone was wearing life jackets. Sharon had river rafted many times. All on the raft except two had experience. The river was recommended by other local people. The store where we rented the raft told us nothing about the danger while he fitted us with life jackets, and didn’t even suggest we wear helmets. There were no signs classifying the river as IV or V level posted anywhere to warn us. Had we been given that information, we would have not taken the chance. The Sheriff even commented that they need to mark the river because of the number of deaths that occur. Unfortunately, there was a man from Salt Lake City who drowned just 15 minuets later on another part of the river. We entered the river on a calmer section, but once we hit that first rapid that threw my wife, one of my daughters, and two male cousins out, we knew we needed to get out, but it was too late. We were able to get my daughter and cousins back in the raft, but not my wife. It could have been much worst. But it is bad enough. Thank you all again for your comments. God bless us all.