“What was mommy like?”

Undoubtedly, this question will be asked by the young Grandson of Shirl Koop. The boy’s mother, Shirley Kay Brocchini-Jones, died as a result of being pulled into the spinning blades of a houseboat while vacationing at Lake Shasta on the weekend of July 25, 1995. Her son, Kieran, was just seven months old at the time, and it was to be the first time away from his parents overnight.

(The following is pieced from the Herald News and the Redding Record Searchlight)

Brocchini-Jones husband, Thomas, 25, Klamath Falls, said he and his wife arrived at the lake Friday afternoon for three days of fun.

But their weekend turned tragic at about 6 p.m. when Brocchini-Jones became entangled in a houseboat propeller in the Waters Gulch on the lake’s Sacramento arm, officials said.

Shirley was trying to board the boat when it accidentally went into reverse, her husband said. As the front of the vessel turned to the left, the boat’s churning propeller moved toward her, drawing her into the blades, according to her husband.

“When I pulled her out it had mangled her right leg to the hip, and severely injured her left leg,” Thomas Jones said Tuesday. After emergency personnel were called, a helicopter arrived and took Jones to Mercy Medical Center in Redding within 20 minutes of the accident.

The bones in her lower left leg were broken in numerous places and are being held in place by a steel casing that resembles a scaffold, said Dr. Kevin Lawson, an orthopedic surgeon who worked on Shirley. She will have limited use of her leg and it may have to be cut off below the knee, Lawson said.

During the surgery Brocchini-Jones required numerous blood transfusions while the doctors tried to repair her severed leg arteries, Schepps said. She used about 70 pints of blood during the surgery, the equivalent of replacing all of the blood in her body seven times, Schepps said.

Schepps and Dr. Jon Oberg worked to repair and reattach Brocchini-Jone’s damaged blood vessels while Lawson and Dr. John Lange worked to fix her muscles and bones, Schepps said.

Mrs. Koop, 48, who has been staying with her daughter at the hospital day and night, said the boat’s propeller should have had some type of guard to prevent the accident. She added that the people using the boat should have been given more safety training.

Despite the many surgeries, including the later amputation of her right leg at the hip, Shirley Kay died.

Shirl Koop said her daughter was fighting a blood infection that caused her body to swell while her lungs kept filling with fluid, making it a struggle to breath, when finally, her heart gave out. “She lay there swollen and gasping for breath. There’s just no way to describe it. The young, beautiful, vibrant child who was so giving…as she lay there for eight days dying the most horrible death. It didn’t have to happen!”

And to Kieran, it should be known that your mother had lots of love for you…

Your story of a propeller strike can help inform.

As a victim of a propeller strike, we know retelling your story is reliving it. This is hard. You want to put it behind you, focus on the healing, on the future and to make the best of what you have left. We respect that. However, you can help SPIN by telling your story. You may just reach out with the story that prevents the next accident and saves a future propeller victim. Your story will reach the U.S.Coast Guard and be available to policy makers and legislators.

You may contact us in many ways:

S.P.I.N. - Stop Propeller Injuries Now
2365 Conejo Court
Los Osos, CA, 93402
tel. 805-528-0554 - fax. 805-526-8756
email: spinsafety@gmail.com