“Here is a little account of a true story that happened to one ACC member during his recent epic journeys. He kindly recalled those dramatic minutes for us to share, both as an encouragement to not panic even if things do go wrong big time, and as a warning to stay away from unpredictable situations and evaluate a rescue first before getting in and into trouble yourself. – Ed.”

I was paddling down the Seti river, helping to run a kayak clinic, when I noticed a kayak overturned and pinned in a rapid. There appeared to be someone in it, so I immediately went to see if I could get them out. There was a gap between the rocks and thought maybe I could pull it out. On the way through, my boat hit the overturned boat and shot to the left. By this time the person inside had been washed out.

However, there were two branches angling downstream to the riverbed, one of which ended up on the front of my boat, the other very forcefully jammed into my hips pressing the small of my back into the rear of my cockpit. There was also a flat rock angling downstream, undercut like the branches, which approx. half of my cockpit was flat against. The strong current was pushing me in the direction of the branches, and the water was pouring over my head.

At that point, I was getting relatively good air. I had been hanging on to the top point of the flat rock, but decided to get hold of the front of Jolag‘s boat, who was in an eddy about a metre downstream. I tried with all my strength to pull myself out of the cockpit but nothing even moved. I tried to pop the deck but it was flat against the rock.

Jolag yelled to Milan who came quickly after rescuing the boat that I had knocked out. He came drifting down, grabbed the front of my kayak and pulled. Again, nothing moved. He tried once more to no available. Then, for the third pull, Milan popped his deck, filling his boat with water for extra weight. This time there was some downward movement, but only to jam my hips harder into the branch and submerging my head, making it now difficult to breathe. I was drinking a lot of the Seti, filtering what air I could out of each mouthful.

Milan changed plan: He managed to get a rope around the front of my boat, then swam to the riverside where various people pulled on it. There was more downward movement now and I was getting very little air. I had a plan of my own but was unsure of its results, so decided to wait and see if Milan could get me out. They gave up on the rope idea – it wasn’t working.

Suddenly, either because Milan swam back to my boat or there was a surge in the water, a small hole appeared. I could reach out to the front of Jolag’s boat, just to let him know I was still hanging on in there. Milan climbed onto the front of my boat, holding on to one of the branches. He too was well into the rapid, jumping up and down on my boat, and there was a lot of downward movement now. I could get no more air, so just held my breath. I could feel Milan jumping, but still nothing. I knew he was desperately trying to free my boat - he never stopped and that gave me hope.

After a while of this he moved onto another idea. I was about 30 seconds away from going for my plan, which was to try and push myself under the branch. This may have smashed my face and I would have risked a further body pinning on the submerged branches, plus I couldn’t get at the deck anyway. Meanwhile, Milan was pulling on one of the branches very hard whilst pushing the back of my boat with his feet. The branch snapped and much to my relief I felt the boat get washed around and go downstream.

I was very tired - oxygen depletion to the max. I got washed out of my boat but managed to grab the front of Jolag’s boat. He took me to the riverside. Later they told me that I was blue from lack of oxygen and my eyes look popped out of my head. My guess is the whole thing took about five minutes, the tourists said six and Milan reckoned between five and seven. Almost half of this was with no air, and that after getting very little before.

The moral of this story is: Stay away of trees and never give up!!!

by John Sheperd, May 1999