Thursday evening started out as usual for the GNN's. We met in the park behind the Bahia Hotel on beautiful Mission Bay for our weekly paddle and bbq. There were 12 of us when we launched. The water was calm, so we paddled out the channel towards the buoy. Some of us were more ambitious and paddled down to the OB Pier and back. As we approached the end of the jetty and the buoy on the return, Judy called out to me "why is Werner towing an empty boat?"

So we paddled over to Werner and asked who's boat it was and what happened...

It was Joan Borellis' boat. A jet skier was racing all around in and out of the channel at high speed. He didn't see the bright yellow kayak as the sun was in his eyes. He later said he thought all the kayaks had gone past. The jet ski hit Joan from behind on the left side, ran up her back hitting her in the head before careening off. Joan was in the water and shocked.The jet skiier turned right around, jumped in the water and swam over to help Joan. Jules was just in front of Joan so he helped the jetskiier rescue Joan. She was very sore, didn't know what happened-just that she was in the water. Jules and the jetskiier got Joan onto the jetski and he took her back to our launch spot where other members of our group were.

When I arrived at the beach, Joan was in the camper and Wilma was helping her to change into dry clothes and Joan was holding an icepack on her head. Joan called her husband to come. As time passed, Joan was feeling worse and worse-someone called the authorities and we soon had perimedics, police and life guards there. Joan left in an ambulance. She spent the night in the hospital. I spoke to Joans husband this morning, Joan is badly bruised-nothing broken and no concusion. She will go home tomorrow most likely-the hospital wants to be sure she can walk on her own first.

When the jet ski hit Joan, someone there should have pulled out a cell phone or marine radio and called authorities right away. Authorities weren't called until Joan was back on the beach. Incidents such as this really bring home the importance of carrying radios and cell phones even for the shortest paddle. And don't hesitate to use them in an emergency-don't try to guess about the seriousness of someones injuries-that person may be in shock and not be aware of how badly they are injured.

SDKC will be having a guest speaker at our monthly meeting from the Coast Guard in the near future -watch for announcement of date - come learn about boater rules and safety and how to handle an emergency such as this one.

Diane Kemp
SDKC President