One Human Error

On a day in May a softly curving Western river can be curiously unpredictable, full of hidden delights and contemptuously unforgiving of just one human mistake. Well was this known to the 1,600 boating buffs who drove across the Mormon desert country in southeastern Utah last weekend and unhitched their outboards on the verdant shores of the Green River for the second annual 196-mile Canyon Country Friendship Cruise. Into the water they went, dodging sandbars, winding past craggy red cliffs, through deep and colorfully named canyons--Moonshining, Hell Roaring, Upheaval.

A green boater has no business in these waters. But an old pro--such as A'Delbert Frank Rich, 41, a Cedar City optometrist and twelve-year boating veteran--should have been safe enough. Aboard his 15-ft., red-and-white cruiser he confidently brought his wife Penney, 35, and his parents, Frank, 65, and Lillian, 64.

Happily, the four boaters cruised south for 125 downstream miles, beyond Candlestick Spire toward the roily confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers. There Pilot Del Rich stopped to help another boat, which was hung up on a sandbar. The rest of the Friendship Cruisers moved past and out of sight. Rich set off after them. Time and again the boaters had been warned to turn left and head upstream into the Colorado, not downstream. But Rich unthinkingly took the wrong turn and cruised on into the white water of Cataract Canyon. It was a human mistake--past the point of no return.

The Riches plowed into boiling rapids, where men and boats have little chance. Up and down, 6-ft., turbulent swells bounced the cruiser. It capsized. Father Frank Rich was heard to scream: "Here we go." Those were his last words. Del Rich pulled his wife from under the boat, and they clawed to shore, watching father and mother bob downstream. Exhausted and distraught, they prayed. Then they limped upstream over sharp limestone, looking for help. "Someone will come," said Penney. "We were not saved from the water to die on the shore."

After 21 hours, a search plane sighted them, dropped a note to a boat, which picked them up. Mother Lillian Rich was given up for dead. But next day a helicopter spotted her, cut and bone weary, back near the confluence, picked her up by landing in a nearby clearing. Search parties later retrieved the hull of the Rich boat, its motor, top and windshield gone. Gone, too, was Frank Rich. His son, Del, could not forgive himself. "It was my fault, my fault," he mumbled over and over, staring out at the river.

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