hate to put a "dent" into ST's good intentioned post, but that MI incident was not a good example of why you should wear a PFD.  In all likelihood, the attempted rescuer died BECAUSE he was wearing a PFD, and the one teenager who survived did so because he WAS NOT wearing a PFD.

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Caught in the recirculating current of a low-head dam, the only way "out" is to dive down to the bottom where the current along the bottom will take you downstream - that's hard to do if you are wearing a PFD (I have read of several accounts where someone had to ditch the pfd in order to escape).  The teen who "blacked out" likely stopped trying to stay on top and the current flushed him out.  Supposedly the rescuer was an "experienced" paddler who knew the risks, but I doubt that he fully understood what he was getting himself into, and had a false sense of security because he was wearing the PFD (Not taking anything away from the guy's effort, but it was the wrong thing to do - about the only way to rescue someone from a recirclulating current entrapment is to throw them a rope while keeping yourself out of the trap - otherwise, you are just another victim)

I happened to be looking at a summary of the AWA accident reports for this year to date, and dug a bit deeper into that MI incident just because I happened to be curious. (this is river/whitewater reported accidents only - does not include lakes).  So far of 53 drownings, 16 involved no pfd, or one worn too loosely (at least one, maybe two instances of being flushed out of the pfd) - while this is primarily high water Cl IV/V incidents (some at only CII), it just reinforces the point that wearing a PFD is not a substitute for good sense, and knowing when to go and when to not go.  I would assume that none of the people who drowned while wearing a pfd (mostly flush drownings, pinned in strainers, etc) would have gone on the same run if they did not have the pfd on.  Notwithstanding the fact that there are hundreds or thousands of cases where a pfd did save someone, it is not a guarantee  of your safety - keep that in mind.