Milton man killed in North Carolina rip current

By COURTNEY LAMDIN | Staff Writer
mireporter@mac.com

Peter Whitworth Howe, 37, was an active, athletic man. He skied and hiked not only Mount Mansfield but also the Alps. He’d taught waterskiing and was even a lifeguard at one point.

That’s why it was such a shock when his family learned he had died of a heart attack while fighting a rip current in Kill Devil Hills, a beach town in North Carolina. He was one of four rip current-related deaths in the 200-mile long Outer Banks region in the two weeks between August 7 and 21.

“You just think [the ocean] is calm,” said his sister, Liesl Moland. “You don’t realize how powerful it is.”

Howe, who lived in Milton for the past four years, had traveled to the Outer Banks for a family reunion to celebrate his mother’s birthday. The family visited the area in Howe’s childhood and hadn’t been back for 20 years.

On Friday, Aug. 13, the family visited the beach, which was posted with yellow flags to indicate caution of rip currents. The surf looked rough, so no one went in far, Moland said.

Later that afternoon, the ocean seemed calmer, and Howe decided to go for a swim alone, agreeing to meet his family later at the pool.

Soon, his family would learn that Howe had slipped off the backside of a sandbar and got caught in a rip current, pushing him 200 yards down the beach. He struggled for 30 seconds and then stopped swimming. Lifeguards quickly rescued him before he went underwater.

If not for the heart attack, Howe could have survived, said his mother, Mary Martha Whitworth.

The death certificate cited a pre-existing medical condition that may have contributed to Howe’s heart attack: he had a bicuspid aortic valve, a heart defect where the passage from the aorta to the heart has two flaps instead of three.

According to the National Institutes of Health, the condition is the most common congenital heart disease, and it often runs in families.

Moland said no one knew about the condition.

“If he had known, we all would know about it and known what to do about it,” she said. “That was a complete surprise when we got that report.”

Both Moland and Whitworth wished there was more awareness about the dangerous rip currents, especially considering the recent deaths on the Outer Banks.

Ironically, a man who drowned exactly a week after Howe shared both his last name and home state of Pennsylvania. Benjamin Howe and his wife, Debra Sue Greene, drowned at Nags Head after stepping off a sandbar, a local news report said.)
Moland and Whitworth were thankful for the fast-acting lifeguards but said 19 is too few to patrol five miles of beach on Kill Devil Hills. They urged any ocean-goers to swim near the lifeguard’s chair for extra safety.

T-Mike Morrison, the ocean rescue supervisor for Kill Devil Hills’ fire department, echoed this suggestion and had a few others for Vermonters visiting the shore.

“If you see a channel of water flowing away from the shore, that would be a rip current,” he said. “Stay out of it.”

If swimmers get caught in a current, Morrison advised them to stay calm.

“It’s hard to teach people that,” he said. “It seems like you’re going to be pulled to China. Your first thought is, ‘I need to swim harder and faster to shore,’ and that’s the worst thing you can do.”

Swimmers should “go with the flow,” Morrison said, and swim parallel to shore until the current releases.

Moland and Whitworth cautioned that even experienced swimmers like Howe can face danger in the ocean.

“It’s deceptive when you see yellow flags, and you think, ‘Well, it’s not that bad,’” Moland said.

The family celebrated Howe’s life, which was full of adventures with his Golden Retriever, Bode, at a memorial service on Saturday, Aug. 28 in his hometown of North Wales, Penn. Moland said 150 people showed to remember her brother, who she described as a people-person.

Howe lived in Milton for just four years, but Whitworth said he made many acquaintances, especially at Rene’s Deli, where he’d walk frequently.

Howe had no children of his own but worked as a camp counselor and ski instructor at both Sugarbush and Smugglers’ Notch resorts and helped out with after-school programs at the Burlington YMCA and one in Pennsylvania.

Everywhere Howe went, even on this last vacation, people said ‘hello’ to him in passing, Moland said.

And it was because he’d made friends with the neighbors that his family knew so quickly about the incident: The neighbors witnessed the rescue and notified Howe’s mother.

“He didn’t have any identification on him,” Moland said. “We would have wondered for hours where he was. He would have been a John Doe for a long time.”

In the days following the accident, Moland has reflected on Howe’s life. She said she’s sorry for the other families coping with these recent deaths.

“This is my first real experience with grief,” she said. “When they say ‘heartache,’ it hurts. I don’t want anybody else to experience it.”

Moland smiles when she talks about her brother and was happy he spent his last days having fun with his family.

“The only saving grace is that we were all together,” she said. “That was really nice to be together as a family.”