MARCH 28, 2015
GOLD BEACH, OREGON
Curry County sheriff's officials say a 56-year-old Cottage
Grove man died this morning when his boat capsized at the mouth of the Rogue
River in Gold Beach.
According to a Curry County Sheriff's Office news release,
deputies took a call at 7:38 a.m. that an 18-foot boat had capsized near
the north jetty as it attempted to cross the bar out to sea. Deputies in a sheriff's marine boat braved 12-
to 14-foot swells to pull the boat's operator, Thomas Whiting, from the water,
along with his nephew Charlie Johnson, also of Cottage Grove.
Deputies say Whiting was unresponsive and face-down in the
water, while Johnson was alert and holding on to a seat cushion. Crews from Cal-Ore Ambulance and the Gold
Beach Fire Department performed CPR on Whiting more than an hour before he was
pronounced dead. Johnson, 36, was taken
to Curry General Hospital for treatment for hypothermia.
Officials say a female yellow Labrador retriever that was on
board the boat is still missing.
The Rogue River Harbor at Gold Beach rises in Cascade
Range of southwestern Oregon, flows westerly through the Coast Range
and empties into Pacific Ocean, 264 miles south of the Columbia River and
381 miles north of the San Francisco Bay.
The entrance of the Rogue River provides two jetties and a
13-foot-deep, 300-foot-wide channel from the ocean to a turning basin about
one-quarter mile downstream of the state highway bridge. Construction of both
jetties was completed in 1960. The north jetty was damaged in the 1964 flood
and repaired in 1966. Three timber pile groins were constructed in 1984 as a
five-year test of their ability to reduce shoaling of the small-boat basin
access channel