AUSTIN, Texas — It’s that time of the year again when boats seem to be everywhere you turn in Austin.
But as a driver, it’s important to think twice before getting behind the wheel if alcohol is involved.
Research shows that a 0.035 Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) on the water is as impaired as a 0.08 BAC would be on land. That’s due to a number of environmental stressors, including motion, vibrations, engine noise, sun, wind and spray.
It’s something Alex Otte unfortunately knows about all too well. She was just 13 years old when a 17-foot boat on Herrington Lake in Kentucky going over 60 mph hit her on a Jet Ski.
The boat driver that hit her was drunk.
“I landed face down on the water, and the boat landed on top of my body,” Otte said.
Otte sustained a traumatic brain injury, a shattered jaw, a broken neck and collarbone, a lacerated liver, shattered femurs and the loss of her right leg below the knee.
“I will never get to forget what he did to me for a single second because I wake up and put on a leg every morning,” Otte said.
The crash also landed her in a coma for a week, eight emergency surgeries in the first seven days, several weeks in the ICU, six weeks in a neck brace and three-and-a-half months in a wheelchair. For the first 11 years after her crash, Otte had to have at least one surgery per year on her jaw just to keep her teeth in because the crash knocked their root system out.
“It will never be over for me. Just because I don’t have a surgery scheduled right now, you know, I know they’re far from over. So recovery will truly never end,” Otte said.
Otte has now made it her life’s work to study the effects of boating while under the influence and to advocate for people to stop. She began volunteering with Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Kentucky within a year of her crash.
Otte also spent two years researching the parallel between boating under the influence and driving under the influence.
“We, as a society, would never watch someone consume a bunch of alcohol and then go to start their car,” Otte said. “People watch others drinking beer while driving a boat, and no one says anything because culturally it's accepted.”
Since boating is generally seen as recreational and not a necessity, Otte thinks people don’t take drinking while operating a boat as seriously as drinking while driving a car. Her hope for this busy Memorial Day weekend – and on the water, always – is that everyone comes home safe.
“Have a sober, non-drinking driver. Wait till you get back to land,” Otte said. “There are so many options to do this the right way.”
Operating a boat while under the influence can also result in a BWI, which can carry similar penalties to a DUI, including possible driver’s license suspension.