Sunday's drownings at Raystown Lake highlight an important facet of boating safety.
Wear your personal flotation device when boating or swimming in deep water.
The three men who died at the popular lake, operated and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, didn't have their life jackets on when they went into the water.
We offer our condolences to the families whose lives changed Sunday.
While we will never know whether wearing a life jacket would have made a difference, the U.S. Coast Guard estimates that 80 percent of drownings could have avoided if the victims wore their life jackets.
All boats must have a Coast Guard-approved wearable life jacket for each passenger, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission said on its website.
But not everyone is required to wear one.
The state requires that a child 12 years of age and younger wear a life jacket while a boat 20 feet in length or less and on all canoes and kayaks. Personal watercraft operators and passengers and anyone towed behind a boat must also wear the life jacket.
It makes sense to wear a life jacket, regardless of whether it's required or not.
In 2011, 22 people died in Pennsylvania boating accidents - all but three didn't wear their life jackets, the Fish and Boat Commission said. Three of those deaths occurred in Blair, Centre and Huntingdon counties and all three didn't wear life jackets.
The time it takes to wear the life jacket may be the moment when you don't become another statistic on our lakes and rivers.
