TERROR ON THE KERN RIVER : It Can Be a Great Place to Play With Tubes, Rafts or Fishing Rods, but for the Careless or Unskilled, the First Slip Could Be the Last

A young man from La Mirada and his friends are riding inner tubes on the Lower Kern River. The young man is suddenly pulled by the current into a white-water area and is knocked off his inner tube. His body is found three days later.

A man from Bakersfield is standing on a mossy rock in the Lower Kern River, fishing. He falls into the river. His wife, eight months pregnant, clutches his hand for a few seconds, but he slips away, into the current. Eight days later, his body still is not found.

A Bakersfield woman, intoxicated, is trying to wade through shallow but fast-moving water on the Upper Kern River to join friends on a large rock in mid-river. She falls and cannot regain her feet. She drowns in three feet of water.

So far, it’s been a relatively quiet summer for the Kern County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Unit on the Kern River. Only four people have drowned. The three cases above have occurred since June.

Since 1968, 112 people have drowned in the Kern River. In an average year, 12 to 13 die in the Kern.

Said Lt. Carl Sparks of the Search and Rescue Unit: “I don’t know of another search and rescue unit in California that responds to as many river searches for drowning victims as we do, and I go to a lot of conferences.”

Most of the Kern drownings since 1968 have common characteristics, Sparks pointed out:

--About 65% involved alcohol or drug abuse.

--The majority of the victims were not wearing life jackets.

--Most of the drownings occurred in the canyon section of the Lower Kern, that portion of the river that flows about 25 turbulent miles down the Sierra Nevada foothills toward Bakersfield.

“The No. 1 safety tip we pass along to people is to wear a life jacket,” Sparks said.

“It’s absolutely vital. It won’t save you in worst-case situations. We have had drownings where life jackets have been ripped off the bodies by the current. But it’ll save you in most situations. We have never recovered a body in the Kern in my six years here that had a life jacket on it, but some of those people we know had them on when they got in trouble.

“Secondly, know how to swim or stay out of the Kern. Third, don’t get in the Kern if you’re drinking. Fourth, have someone with you. Fifth, be familiar with what’s downstream. You may be in a nice, quiet pool, but what’s behind the rocks downstream?”

Sparks estimates that 300 to 400 “tubers,” people who ride inner tubes on the river, use the Kern each summer weekend. Most of them stay in the relatively safe stretch of river between Lake Ming and Hart Park, he said. Most drownings have occurred in the big white-water sections of the canyon.

“Maybe that ought to be the No. 1 safety tip--stay out of the canyon,” he added. “We tell people, ‘If you want to raft it, do it with a professional rafting outfit out of (the town of) Lake Isabella.’ ”

Chuck Richards owns one Lake Isabella rafting company, Chuck Richards’ Whitewater. Three others are Outdoor Adventures, Whitewater Voyages and Kern River Tours. Two firms based in Kernville are Whitewater Experience and West Westwater.

Richards gives a safety presentation to every group of rafters he takes on the river.

“One thing I tell people is that in the unlikely event they’re knocked out of the boat: Get back in immediately or swim on their back away from the boat. It’s most likely going to be moving and you don’t want it to hit you.

“It’s important to swim on your back. That way, if you’re moving downriver with the current, you can avoid rocks with your feet, not your head.

“And stay out of trees. A lot of people have died in the Kern because they thought tree branches would save them. The trees are death traps. It’s like facing a chain link fence and having five guys behind you shooting fire hoses at you.”

Richards said that he sees people in marginal safety situations nearly

every time he guides a group on the river.

“Just last weekend, we saw four rubber inflatables behind us, full of inexperienced people. They pulled out for a break across the river from us in late afternoon, and I saw them putting back in again.

“I asked them if they knew how far the next exit is,” he said, describing a place near a road where boats can be taken off the river and transported to vehicles. “They didn’t, as I suspected, and I told them it was 8 or 10 miles.

“They had a couple of broken paddles, I’d noticed. And they would have been on the river in the dark. They concluded their trip right there.”

The National Forest Service requires that Kern boaters have a permit for all boats longer than six feet. The permits are free, and available at the Forest Service office in Kernville.

Recreational use of the Kern River has increased markedly in recent summers, Richards said.

“I see 20 to two dozen boats, meaning anything from inner tubes to rubber boats, every weekend,” he said.