LAKE OF THE OZARKS, Mo. — Untold thousands of vacationers came to enjoy the Lake for a long July 4th holiday weekend, and the busiest time of the year was fatality-free at the nation’s favorite recreational lake and across the state of Missouri.
The good news flies in the face of some recent bad press for the hottest boating location in the Midwest, with multiple regional media outlets calling the Lake of the Ozarks dangerous. But on the busiest weekend of the year for the Lake in the heart of Missouri, boating fatalities were nonexistent and injuries were nearly so.
For the period beginning Friday evening, June 30, through Tuesday, July 4, the Patrol reported six boating incidents on the Lake. Three of those were non-injury accidents. The other three included:
- A man seriously injured when he lost his balance on a flyboard and landed on the PWC that was pulling it.
- A man who fell off a boat while trying to board a PWC and sustained moderate injuries.
- A woman who fell off a PWC after hitting a wave and sustained minor injuries when the PWC hit her while in the water.
It is not possible to obtain an exact count of the boaters who hit the water over the four-day weekend, but estimates reach into the tens of thousands, on a Lake that boasts nearly 30,000 docks and more shoreline than the state of California.
Statewide, the Patrol reports there were a total of seven crashes, four injuries, and zero crash-related fatalities or drownings.
