N.W.T. boaters urged to wear life-jackets

Northwest Territories safety officials are urging people of all ages, especially elders, to wear life-jackets when they are boating, while a Fort Liard, N.W.T., woman said she wished her husband had worn one.

Judy Lomen said her husband, Isadore, realized the importance of wearing a life-jacket when it was too late — after he had fallen out of his boat, into the Liard River, near his bush camp on May 30.

Lomen said she watched from the shore as her husband struggled to put on a life-jacket in the fast-moving, muddy river.

"He was trying so hard to swim towards the boat, but I don't know what happened," Lomen told CBC News in an interview this week.

"I looked for him again. He went under. I never [saw] him again."

Found life-jacket clumsy

Isadore Lomen, 66, was described as an experienced boater, but he drowned in the river, about 36 kilometres south of the N.W.T.-B.C. border. Searchers found his body nearly two weeks later.

Judy Lomen said her husband had a life-jacket, but he did not use it because he felt it was clumsy to wear.

"I told him … 'Your life-jacket's under the seat in the boat.' I said, 'You should wear your life-jacket.' But for so many years, you know, he's been going up and down the river," she said.

Lomen said her life-jacket is not comfortable, either, but she added it would be too risky not to wear one.

The N.W.T. Transportation Department said people are getting better at wearing life-jackets, as they learn to respect the effects cold lakes and rivers can have on the human body.

Water safety promoted

In Inuvik, N.W.T., safety officials held a community presentation on Monday to promote life-jacket usage and other aspects of water safety to people of all ages, especially adults.

"If you put a life-jacket on a child but not on yourself, and then the boat tips over, all you're doing is giving the child an opportunity to watch you drown," said Alana Mero of the Inuvik Interagency Committee, which organized the presentation.

Mero said about 100 life-jackets were given away, with the hope that experienced boaters will get into the habit of wearing them.

"We asked the elders to come up first because we knew that people are going to learn from elders, that people will use the elders as a role model," she said.

The presentation also encouraged people to tell someone about their travel plans when they head out onto the water.