In 2020, on June 7, a Sunday, a 33-year-old man floating in a kayak on Lake Norman flipped over and drowned.
The following Sunday, on the same lake, a 28-year-old man jumped from a boat and vanished. Authorities found his body about a week later.
Later in June, a 27-year-old driver of a pontoon boat dove into the lake. He, too, drowned.
June is the deadliest month for swimming and recreating in North Carolina waters, according to data from the state’s Wildlife Resources Commission. And the waterway with the most fatalities between 2012 and 2023 was Lake Norman, the massive, man-made lake that separates four counties northwest of Charlotte.
‘Preserve your life’
From 2012 through 2023, 230 people died while boating or swimming in state waterways, according to a Charlotte Observer analysis of state data. More than 40 of them died in June, the first month of summer and the time when crowds start flocking to beaches, rivers and lakes.
At least 19% of the 230 people who died had drugs or alcohol in their system at the time of their deaths.
Most of the victims, like the three men who died in Lake Norman in 2020, were not wearing a personal flotation device, records show.
In 2017, the Wildlife Resource Commission started its “Preserve Your Life” campaign, which stresses the importance of wearing a personal flotation device while in the water. In an emergency, there isn’t always time to put one on, the campaign states. And even the best swimmers can be incapacitated during an accident, it says.
About 20% of the people who died in state waterways were killed in a boating accident or had some type of trauma, such as getting injured after diving into shallow water, data show.
About half drowned. Others died of heart attacks, hypothermia or other medical conditions.
Lake Norman fatalities
Lake Norman, the largest lake in North Carolina, is also the deadliest body of water in the state.
Twenty-eight people died in the lake from 2012 through 2023, The Observer found. Meckleburg County’s other lakes had far fewer deaths.
Along the Catawba River south of Lake Norman is Mountain Island Lake, which had two fatalities — the result of a boating accident in 2015.
Further south, along the South Carolina border, Lake Wylie recorded five fatalites, the most recent of which happened during a boating accident in 2022, records show.
Mecklenburg County leads state in waterway deaths
Some other takeaways from the Wildlife Resources Commission data:
▪ Fatalities in North Carolina waterways have dropped in recent years, from 26 in 2020 to 16 last year.
▪ Nearly 80% of the victims were not wearing a personal flotation device.
▪ Mecklenburg County had the most deaths with 17. Iredell County, just north of Charlotte, and coastal Brunswick County had 13 deaths.
NC Reality Check reflects the Charlotte Observer’s commitment to holding those in power to account, shining a light on public issues that affect our local readers and illuminating the stories that set the Charlotte area and North Carolina apart. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@charlotteobserver.com
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