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Family of rafting guide urges state to require AEDs on commercial rafts
Summary
Bob and Gail Sparell told the Worker Memorial Day audience about their son Mike's 2023 rafting death and said friends have proposed a state-law amendment to require automated external defibrillators on commercial rafts; family members and the crowd urged that lessons from the death be turned into safety changes.
At Washington's Worker Memorial Day ceremony, Gail and Bob Sparell recounted the 2023 death of their son, Mike, who died after his commercial rafting guide raft overturned on the Wenatchee River. The family said the coroner concluded cold-water shock triggered an asthma attack that in turn caused a heart attack, and that emergency responders were unable to revive him.
Gail Sparell described the accident and the grief that followed,…
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