Boaters stranded on Mosquito Lake not infrequent

WARREN -- It was just after midnight Aug. 23 when Eric Funkhouser, his wife and his mother were in a boat on Mosquito Lake when the 21-foot vessel stopped dead in the water.

"I thought it could be the water pump," Funkhouser, 39, of Aurora, said of the 1989 Thunderbird. "The boat had not been in the water for eight years and I was told that water pumps tend to go bad after a few years."

"I spoke to a ranger shortly before we pushed off into the lake," Funkhouser said. "We inspected the boat, so we really did not expect anything to happen."

But it did.

He said he was out on the water in those early morning hours to make sure the boat was running the way it should without getting in the way of other boaters, but doing that also put him in the middle of the lake when there were no other boaters around to help. He used his cellphone to call for help.

His is an example of something that happens often on the lake -- boaters left stranded on the water, according to a county police officer.

Trumbull County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Harold Wix, who heads the office's Marine Patrol, said it is not unusual for the patrol to help boaters having engine trouble.

"We have not done many search and rescues," Wix said. "It is mostly going out to help people whose boats are not operating properly."

It was the Marine Patrol that pulled Funkhouser and the others on his boat back to shore.

"I think we went into an area in which there were underwater mounds," Funkhouser said. "My boat's prop hit something and it broke a blade. With the prop broken, the boat could not move forward."

Wix couldn't provide an exact number, but said a low estimate for what are called "boater assists" done by the Marine Patrol is about 25 this year.

"We assist them bringing them back to shore and then they can trailer it up and work on it at home," Wix said.

Stephanie Leis, spokeswoman with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said its Division of Watercraft officers responded to seven calls for help and received 125 calls at the state park.

ODNR's website shows there were 113 boating accidents in 2016 in Ohio, but just one in Trumbull County and three in Mahoning County.

Tammy Vanderwall, a resource officer with ODNR, said the biggest problem the state agency has at the lake is having to tow boats that stopped because of mechanical issues.

"These are the same kind of issues that occur at every waterway in the state," she said.

There was boy who drowned at the lake in June, however, the death of Travis Jay Shaffer, 16, of Cortland, was not related to a boating accident.

Bazetta fire Chief Dennis Lewis said the department had two water rescues so far this year. One involved an inflatable rubber boat that was taking on water and the other, the boat's engine stopped.

"We average about two rescue calls a year in which someone has to go out to pull someone from a damaged vessel," Lewis said.

David Rey, chief of the fire department in Cortland, which is near, but doesn't border the lake like Bazetta, Greene and Mecca, said 2017 has been quiet. The fire department often works with those neighbors in situations in which boaters are stuck on the water.

"We do not have a boat, so we will provide manpower and ambulance services," Rey said.

rsmith@tribtoday.com