Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - A boat at the Lockport Caves capsized this past Monday, throwing 29 people onboard the flat-bottomed boat into the waters of the Erie Canal. Unfortunately, one person did not survive the capsizing, while a number of others were transported to the hospital for further evaluation.
As it turns out, though, this is not the first instance of a Lockport Cave boat capsizing with people onboard. In fact, it was in late September of 2015 when a boat capsized in the caves with around 40 local hospitality workers taking a tour.
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"We went down the one end, went to come back the other end, and the boat got a little tippy. The next thing I know, the boat flips over, I get thrown into the water, the boat turns over and capsizes, hits me, strikes me in the back and the head and the neck, pushes me down to the bottom of the water. I pushed myself back up again, and it was just pure chaos," said Kevin Dobson from Lancaster, who was with clients and staff of the former Baker Victory Services that day. "There were clients all over the place, staff all over the place - some of which who couldn't swim - people terrified. I, myself, and some of the other staff had to pull the kids out of the water, get them back out of the building. There was only one person there that was a facilitator from the Lockport Caves, and he was the one who was operating the boat. He tried really hard to help us, but he was pretty much handcuffed as much as the rest of us."
Dobson said there were no lifejackets or other safety precautions taken with the boat tour that day. Once in the water, Dobson recalls how dark it was in the cave, and how he could barely move in water around six-feet deep.
"We got everybody out of the cave, I remember the last thing I did was I jumped back in the water and swam to the very end of the cave to make sure everybody was gone, because I could see stuff floating in the water," Dobson said. "At that time, I was wearing contacts, they got washed out, I couldn't see very well. There was nobody else there. I went back to the exit to get out, and I kept waiting to run into a police officer or a fireman or a rescue person. Nobody was called. We were completely on our own."
While Dobson doesn't remember what caused the flat-bottomed boat to flip over in the cave, he did remember how low in the water the boat sat with the people onboard. He remembers watching the water come up over the sides of the boat before being thrusted against the side of the wall and underneath the boat.
After coming out of the water and exiting the Lockport Caves, Dobson says nothing more was ever made of the incident.
"I remember walking over into the parking lot and talking with a couple of staff, who were so shaken up - one of which I had to pull out of the bottom of the water because he couldn't swim. And somebody walked out and offered us water, pop and some snacks, and we got in our vans and we drove back to Baker Victory," he said. "Then I went, I filled out a significant incident report. The next day, I spoke with an agency lawyer for several hours, and that pretty much was all that really happened."
Dobson was shocked that the incident was never spoken of again, and was angered when people talked on Monday like an incident of this nature had never happened before at the Lockport Caves.
"My immediate reaction, not to sound histrionic, was I started to shake, because I could remember the terrifying episode. When I first went into that water, I thought, 'Oh my God, I'm gonna drown.' Then it kicked over my head that you've gotta get out of the water, you've got to take care of these people you're responsible for," Dobson recalled. "Then as I was watching it and I heard it'd never happened before, I thought, 'It happened before. This should be acknowledged, and somebody should be held responsible for what happened.'
"From what they described, it was the exact same scenario that I went through. The boat flipped over, and this poor person that drowned wasn't able to get out from underneath it. Now, I don't know what happened to them, they could have been hitting the head, they could have been unable to swim. But even still, somebody needs to be held responsible. That was the biggest reason why I contacted somebody, because I wanted somebody to know this has happened before, and it probably could have been prevented."
As for what comes of Monday's capsizing, Dobson believes there should be some sort of punitive actions taken against the owners of the Lockport Caves.
"I don't even know if I can say there should be a lawsuit, but somebody should be held accountable, and somebody should be charged with negligence to what happened to these poor people," he said.
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