Re: [Paddlewise] Kids and PFDs

On Tuesday 17 October 2006 03:22, Chuck wrote:

(snip)

> But about Kids! Two states still do not require children to wear pfds.
> Twice in the past two years fathers have gone fishing with a son
> that has fallen overboard. In both cases, the fathers jumped in to
> save their sons and in both cases father and son went to the
> bottom. Tell me that it is ok for fathers to take their sons to the
> bottom with them because we must preserve our god given freedom
> of choice no matter who pays the price!

Better arguement for PFDs is hard to find: Your loved ones have a
bigger chance to retrieve your body, if you should die while paddling!

And in the situation above, unless the water was extremely cold and the 
dads  were drunk, the chances for a happy ending increases drastically if 
you're properly equipped!

I've spent quite some time reading articles written by paddlers that
end up in lifethreatening situations, on the web, plus Matt's book, and
again and again the situation gets much worse due to the lack of a
PFD - some do discard them when they know they are very good 
swimmers, but when you've been in the water a long time your
brain doesn't work very well, so you can easily make the wrong 
descision. So if your law is always use a PFD, it is less likely
that you'll take it off, when you shouldn't!

Tord
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