Texas Game Wardens, as usual, were busy over the Fourth of July holiday.
Among them were Cameron County wardens, who made 224 boat inspections, issued 35 warnings, wrote 31 citations and made two arrests, one for Boating While Intoxicated and a second for an outstanding Cameron County warrant.
One of the incidents involved a heavily overloaded boat off South Padre Island, which actually began to sink after wardens pulled alongside.
“It was way overloaded,” said Cameron County Game Warden Calvin Atkinson, who arrived at the scene after the initial contact by another team of wardens.
“When the game wardens stopped that boat for a water safety inspection, they saw that it was taking on water and was below the surface of the water, and at one point the game warden stated that it kind of tipped over and a few people fell off,” Atkinson said.
“They radioed us, myself and another game warden, so we went over there and we got some people on our boat and the game warden that had initially stopped that vessel got some people on to his boat, and I think we left four on that particular boat so there must have been 10 people on a smaller boat,” he added. “We escorted them to where they had docked off at so we made sure they got home safely.”
Atkinson said nobody was injured during the incident,
“I’m sure the driver of the boat, his pride got hurt anyway, after one of the other game wardens had to deal with him,” Atkinson said. “That was a disaster waiting to happen.”
Atkinson said he believed water-safety citations were issued in the case.
“As game wardens, we expect people to be ready on the water with their safety equipment and knowledge of how they operate their vessel and what to do in an emergency before they get on the water,” Atkinson said. “We don’t want them to figure that out while they’re on the water, or when we stop them to figure out, ‘Oh I don’t have a life jacket,’ or ‘I don’t have this or that,’
“We want them to know all that and make a prior plan before they’re on the water, because once they’re on the water, it’s too late,” he added.
Willacy County game wardens conducted a boating rescue just outside Port Mansfield Harbor over the holiday weekend.
A recreational vessel capsized within the intercoastal waterway on the way into Port Mansfield. Game wardens rescued four occupants who were in the water without personal floatation devices. All occupants were safely taken ashore without injuries.
Statewide, game wardens issued 1,560 citations and 1,976 warnings for various boating safety law violations, arrested 49 individuals for Boating While Intoxicated and filed eight other charges for Driving While Intoxicated. Additionally, another 23 people were arrested for various other charges.
