SC Chattooga River lawsuit settled in case of watery death at Sock-em-dog rapids

It took seconds for Thomas Hill to be thrown from a raft in the Chattooga River at raging Sock-em-Dog rapids in Oconee County, where he was sucked under and drowned.

It took 16 days and 240 searchers using underwater cameras and sonar to find his body, trapped in an underwater “room of doom” beneath a ledge that is part of Sock-em-Dog rapids — one of the most dangerous parts of a remote South Carolina river whose dangers were made famous by the movie “Deliverance.”

And it has taken seven years to finally settle a wrongful death lawsuit by Hill’s family alleging negligence by an adventure outing company, Southeastern Expeditions, that organizes rafting trips down a hazard-filled Chattooga River stretch in the state’s northwest corner.

“This was Mr. Hill’s first time ever going whitewater rafting,” a lawsuit in the case said.

Southeastern Expeditions admitted no fault in the death. The settlement before state Judge R. Scott Sprouse was confidential. A company spokesman could not be reached.

Under federal laws for operating a whitewater rafting company on the Chattooga River, the outfitters were required to keep a minimum of $1 million in liability insurance coverage, according to filings in the lawsuit.

“We were glad that we were able to come to a resolution,” said Bobby Jones, the Greenville attorney who represented the Hill family in the case. He had no other comment other than to say, “The allegations in the lawsuit speak for themselves.”

In any case, the lawsuit and Hill’s death are stark reminders of the dangers people face in going into remote areas where freak events or small slips can mean death — even in an excursion run by an experienced outfitter.

“The wilderness is not Disneyland,” said S.C. Department of Natural Resources spokesman David Lucas, whose agency advises people use common sense and prudence in any outdoor excursion.

Karl Addis, longtime Oconee County coroner, said that since 1970, there have been 42 deaths on that part of the Chattooga River, which forms the Georgia-South Carolina border. (The U.S. Forest Service has compiled a list of most of these deaths.)

Chattooga whitewater deaths

“Of those 42 deaths, only two of them have been with a commercial outfitter. The others were like private kayakers or people being out on the river,” said Addis, who became coroner in 1993 and who has worked more than a dozen Chattooga deaths.

“Mr. Hill’s raft, it got hung up in the rapids and tilted over, and Mr. Hill unfortunately died,” Addis said. “His body was discovered on July 5 of that year, after heavy rains washed him out.”

During the lengthy recovery operation, which was hampered by the rain-swollen Chattooga and water moving at threatening velocities, Forest Service rangers made near-daily postings about the efforts to find Hill. After 13 days, searchers located his body beneath Sock-em-dog rapids, and it took nearly four more days to finish the recovery.

“There’s some pretty violent water, as well as some pretty big log jams and lots of other debris in the river,” said Oconee County Emergency Management Director Scott Krein one day before Hill’s body was retrieved. “We weren’t even able to hike a crew in because the rain simply never slowed down.”

The force of the water was so strong that it had ripped the helmet and life jacket off him when he was found, according to evidence in the case.

The Chattooga is designated as a “wild and scenic river,” meaning that it is a federally-protected, free-flowing river remarkable for its beauty, geology history or other characteristics. The stretch of the river where Hill died has rapids with names like Corkscrew, Crack in the Rock, Jawbone and Soc-em-dog.

In 1972, the Chattooga was the scene of the classic movie Deliverance, in which four Atlanta businessmen on holiday canoeing the river are stalked by barbaric mountain men. The movie is based on a novel by the late James Dickey, a noted American poet who taught for nearly 30 years at the University of South Carolina.

Administered by the U.S. Forest Service, the Chattooga begins in the North Carolina mountains and flows 50 miles through the Francis Marion and Sumter National Forests to Lake Tugaloo, which is partially in Oconee County and partially in Georgia. The river is described by the Forest Service as “one of the longest and most spectacular free-flowing mountain rivers in the Southeast.”

Robbie Sitzlar, U.S. Forest Service ranger for the Andrew Pickens district, said, “The Chattooga River is known world-wide by the white water rafting community. We recommend visitors use the USDA Forest Service’s Southern Region’s White Water Safety checklist. Also, be sure you research before your trip to see what whitewater skills and experience are equal to the river and the conditions.”

SC’s death-defying rafting

The Hill family lawsuit described the situation this way: “Tom Hill unknowingly came head on with one of the most difficult stretches of rapids in America, ill prepared for the hazards he was about to face.”

At the time, Hill was 51, a Florida-based sales manager for Sherwin-Williams paint company. With other employees, he was on a company retreat. He had a wife and four children, ages from 14 to 19. Sherwin-Williams did not respond to a request for comment.

River conditions that morning made the rapids “high, fast and extremely dangerous” and the outfitter disregarded those conditions, the Hill family’s lawsuit alleged. Its guides chose to ignore that risks and the skill level of their customers, the lawsuit said — an allegation denied by the outfitter in its response to the lawsuit.

The climax of Hill’s trip — and where he died — was near the end, where rafters confront the steepest rapids of any commercially rafted river in the South. At that point, rafts shoot down notorious rapids called Five Falls and Soc-em-Dog, the lawsuit said.

“A whitewater river outfitter must not take untrained customers on rivers beyond their ability levels,” the lawsuit said.

In its responses, the outfitter denied the river was too dangerous that morning and asserted it acted properly.

Although the company admitted it had a duty to act act reasonably, “Mr. Hill assumed the inherent risks of whitewater rafting and that he agreed to hold defendants harmless” for any matters arising out of his “use of renting equipment and participation in rafting activities,” the company asserted in legal filings.

Other legal issues in the case included whether Hill drowned in South Carolina or in Georgia across the state line, in which case the lawsuit might have been handled in Georgia courts.

The Chattooga is so dangerous that its strongest currents can grab people who are just swimming or wading, said Addis, the Oconee coroner.

Despite Hill’s death on a commercial rafting outfitter, Addis said, “Unless you are a very experienced kayaker, I’d encourage people to go with a commercial rafting company.”

But, Addis added, “The river — you have to respect it — it is water and it’s moving at a pretty good rate.”

These days, Southeastern Expeditions is still advertising on its internet site the thrills of rafting the Chattooga and hitting the rapids including “the coup de grace, Sock-em-dog, (which) buffets you with its fast approaching rapids and rock wall obstacles that end in a gut bending drop.”

The site does not mention Hill’s death.

This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 5:00 AM.