On PMWs and two-stroke engines

Abstract

On Saturday, August 24, 1996, a 40-year-old man from Edmonton was riding a personal motorized watercraft (PMW, a Seadoo or Jet Ski type of machine) on Shuswap Lake, in south-central British Columbia. He was approximately 200 m offshore. The man motioned to his sister, who was riding another PMW, to follow him across the lake. She did so, but as the turned her head to check for other boat traffic, her brother suddenly slowed down and her machine rode right up on his back, crushing him against his handlebars. His sister, a nurse, held her brother's head above water until help arrived but, 48 minutes after the moment of impact, he was pronounced dead at the Shuswap Lake General Hospital. He had suffered a ruptured aorta.