A personal injury law firm out of Connecticut has determined the most dangerous beaches in the country are located in … Oregon’s Clackamas County.
How, you might ask, could they come to this conclusion, considering the county is about 100 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean?
The firm’s analysis looked at the number of water rescues reported to the United States Lifesaving Association, a nonprofit professional association representing beach lifeguards and open water rescuers. Clackamas County may not have a beach, but it does have fast-moving rivers.
If you dive into the data, you’ll see the rescues are further defined by cause: rip tides, struggling in the surf or swift-moving water. In Clackamas County, every reported rescue was in swift water.
According to a news release, Connecticut Trial Firm looked at data reported to the U.S. Lifesaving Association over the past 10 years and determined that the number of rescues per 100,000 “beachgoers” in Clackamas County is 177.7. The data relies on an attendance figure of people recreating in or near the water as estimated by the reporting agencies.
“This is the highest ratio nationwide and as much as 34% more than the next most dangerous county,” the report claims. It did not include counties with fewer than 100,000 reported attendees.
The second most dangerous county, according to these lawyers in Connecticut, is Ventura County, California, which had 7,760 reported rescues since 2013 but almost 6 million visitors during the same time frame.
A few more caveats here. The data used only includes information that was reported to the U.S. Lifesaving Association – and in Clackamas County, that was only data from ambulance provider American Medical Response. Since 2013, American Medical Response reported responding to a total of 1,049 rescues and five drownings in Clackamas County. In 2023 alone, the agency reported 77 rescues and no drowning deaths.
But there have been more deaths than that data suggests. A project by The Oregonian/OregonLive to map drownings across the state noted 16 drownings along the Clackamas River in Clackamas County from 2006 to 2017. Most recently, two brothers drowned in the Clackamas River in May 2023.
As spring break approaches, this is all a good reminder that Oregon’s waterways can be dangerous. Oregon had the 13th highest drowning rate in the country from 2011 to 2020, with 1.59 deaths by drowning per 100,000 people, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As the air temperatures warm, water temperatures remain frigid, and Oregon’s rivers are fast moving. Always wear a life jacket while in the river. The Oregon Marine Board maintains a statewide map of life jacket loaner stations.
-- Samantha Swindler covers features for The Oregonian and Here is Oregon. Reach her at sswindler@oregonian.com.
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