July 24–RICHMOND, Va. — A fatal incident in Prince George County on Saturday illustrates the special dangers of towing a tube with a boat.

State laws and regulations govern “towing sports” such as tubing, skiing and wakeboarding, in which you are towed while standing on a board.

But people who follow a boat on skis or a board have some control over their direction. It’s different on a tube.

“When you are on a tube, you’re pretty much at the mercy of the boat because there is no way to steer the tube,” said Tom Guess, boating safety program manager for the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Some people forget that the tube swings out to one side when the boat turns, Guess said.

“They think, ‘Well, I’m 20 feet away from the beach,’ but when the boat turns, if you have a 40-foot rope or a 30-foot rope, now you’ve slung that person into the beach.”

Grayson Payne Austin, 10, died, and a 9-year-old boy was injured Saturday about 8 p.m. after the boat pulling the tube on which they rode turned, and the tube swung onto the shore of Butterworth Pond in Prince George, authorities said.

“When the inner tube swung around, it swung right to the shoreline and knocked both kids out into a tree,” said game department spokesman Lee Walker.

The game department has named only the boy who died. The other boy was in serious condition Monday at VCU Medical Center, Walker said.

“He made it through (an operation on Sunday), which was a good thing,” Walker said.

The incident remained under investigation Monday. It was the first towing-sports fatality in Virginia since at least 2008, officials said. Statistics before 2008 were not immediately available.

Butterworth Pond is long and narrow and covers about 33 acres, Walker said. “When the body of water is smaller, there is less room for error.”

Those in the boat were the mother of Austin and the parents of the other child, Walker said. Walker said he was not sure which one was driving.

There have been 51 towing-sports injuries in Virginia since 2008, said Guess, who compiled recent statistics Monday. In 2009 through 2011, there were about three tubing accidents each year resulting in severe head injuries, he said.

“Typically tubing injuries more often than not contribute to collisions with fixed objects, resulting in moderate to severe head trauma,” Guess said.

State laws and regulations govern towing sports on state waters, not private waters, Guess said. Butterworth Pond is private, officials said.

Boaters also must use common sense, Guess said.

“You always have to be aware of the water you are operating on. It’s always a good idea to take your boat at a slow speed and actually run the course that you’re going to be towing people across.”

rspringston@timesdispatch.com (804) 649-6453

REPOST (Courtesy of Times Dispatch)