Boater crashes into duck blind on Wappapello Lake

WAPPAPELLO LAKE, Mo. -- As a Poplar Bluff, Mo., man recovers from serious facial injuries at an area hospital, Missouri State Water Patrol officers were back on Wappapello Lake on Monday morning to investigate the crash that put him there.

At about 7:20 p.m. Sunday, Jimmy Rayburn, 58, suffered severe facial lacerations when his 17-foot 1988 Cajun bassboat impaled the side of a duck blind in Duck Blind Cove near Rockwood Point, said water patrolman David Nelson.

Nelson said he got a call Sunday night from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after the Butler County Sheriff's Department received a 911 call about a boating accident at Wappapello.

Rayburn, who apparently did not lose consciousness, had called 911 from his cell phone to report the crash.

When Nelson arrived, he said, he went out to the scene with Corps rangers, as well as Butler County and Wayne County deputies.

"When we arrived, Mr. Rayburn had already been picked up by another boater and taken to an awaiting ambulance and helicopter" where he was airlifted to Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau from Rockwood Point, Nelson said.

A boater, Nelson said, had been pulling up to the ramp at Rockwood to take his boat out when Rayburn's son "told him 'My dad was in an accident in Duck Blind Cove.' At that time, the boater went to Duck Blind Cove and picked up Mr. Rayburn."

When officers arrived in the cove, they saw that at least half of Rayburn's boat had impaled the blind, Nelson said.

The blind, Corps Ranger Eric Lemons said, is actually a converted pontoon boat. "It's a box-type structure; it has a boat hide," he said.

Most often, boat hides, which hide the boats to prevent them from being seen by ducks and other waterfowl, are just wire screen with camouflage netting, Lemons said.

"Then, you get in the blind from there," Lemons said. "The shooting gallery is a plywood box with metal roof. ... It looks like a box with brush all over it."

Nelson believes Rayburn was heading out of the cove when the crash occurred.

According to Nelson, there are multiple blinds in the cove, which is estimated to be about 500 feet wide and 2,000 feet long.

"When it is outside of duck season, everyone stores their duck blinds there," Nelson said. "They are out of the way. They sit back in this cove, and they're anchored."

The accident, Nelson said, was unwitnessed.

Nelson said he and patrolman Cole Chatman were going back to the scene Monday to do follow-up investigation and meet with the blind's owners, as well as Rayburn's son.

"The boat is still there," Nelson said. "It got dark, and I wasn't able to see the extent of the damages [Sunday night], so I may need to see if I can separate them [the boat and blind] without causing more damage."

When Nelson went to the hospital Sunday night, he said, Rayburn was in surgery and then heavily medicated.

Although Nelson has not spoken with Rayburn, "from what I understand, he was fishing in that area," he said.