Maine boaters aren’t always prepared for the worst despite recent drownings

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 5, 2022

Maine had 38 boating-related deaths from 2015-19. That included 28 drownings — 22 of which occurred with people who were not wearing life jackets. And just this summer, a fisherman who was not wearing a life jacket drowned on Roxbury Pond last week, and in June an angler on the East Branch of the Kennebec River drowned after his raft capsized. He was not wearing a life jacket. “Things can go wrong pretty quick: you fall out of the boat and you can’t get to a life jacket in time to throw it to someone,” said Warden Sgt. Kyle Hladik who, as a member of the Maine Warden Service Dive Team, has recovered bodies of people who died in the water.