Beaufort County Sheriffs Office talks boating safety ahead of Memorial Day
'It's the river, It's not the ocean, but we got 130 square miles of water in this county. A lot of people out on the boats, people from out of town that come,' Beaufort County Sheriff's Office Captain Kasey Neal said. 'With that said, people get out in the water, people start drinking, speeding, things like that. Accidents do happen.'
The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office has a new safety boat they got in August of 2024 through a grant.
'This gives us the ability to get out here and respond to maybe someone who's just fallen overboard, maybe has gone unconscious, maybe is skiing and hit a log here, which is popular in the Tar River, Pamlico River,' Beaufort County Sheriff Scott Hammonds said. 'We have injuries and we just want to be able to be another asset to respond.'
Capt. Kasey Neal said just last week officials rescued a man who fell off his boat in Belhaven.
'It could've been avoided. So, when you have a life jacket on, or if you have a kill switch on the boat, especially with life jacket, we've been able to locate that person a lot, lot quicker. So, I don't like things that are avoidable,' Capt. Neal said.
Memorial Day weekend is a big weekend for people to go out on the boat with friends and family.
'Alcohol and boating is not the combination. You want to be cold out here on the waterfront, operating on the river,' Sheriff Hammonds said. 'The tragedy of that is injury or death and it is an experience that is thoughtless and reckless.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Miami Herald
13 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Causeway cannibal, Versace, Mob hits. See biggest Miami crime through the years
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