Nooksack raft flip

[Wadin' Boot]

Two killed during river rafting trip on Nooksack River

A commercially operated river raft with four customers and a guide on board overturned on the river.

www.kiro7.com

Damn, I do love an occasional whitewater trip, and that accident is hard to read. two dead, both wearing helmets, wetsuits and lifejackets. Anybody know more?

Nooksack is a narrow river with lots of wood....

On those boats they tell you if you get washed out just lie on your back and lift your feet.... the guide will come get you etc. Why wouldn't you want to lie on your back and move to towards a side as best you could? Appreciate any white water survival tips....

 

[Josh]

The N Fork of the Nooksack has changed a lot over the past year with all the flooding last fall and then it's been running high with the significant rain this spring. I don't have any info on the accident, but I do wonder if either something wasn't scouted properly or something changed unexpectedly on the river.

Or maybe it was just a bit of bad luck that ended in tragedy given the current state of the river. Rafting carries some amount of risk even in the best of conditions. I feel for the families involved though.

 

[Pink Nighty]

So sad. Tuesday wasnt a rager day either, I fished it on weds and it was pretty calm. A reminder that even when things appear safe and precautions have been taken, you need to be prepared for when it all fails. And honestly it appears these guys were prepared for that and it still didnt matter.

 

[rickrosner]

According to reports, the guide managed to save the two females on the trip from the rapid. At least that's some good news.

 

[JayB]

Two killed during river rafting trip on Nooksack River

A commercially operated river raft with four customers and a guide on board overturned on the river.

www.kiro7.com

Damn, I do love an occasional whitewater trip, and that accident is hard to read. two dead, both wearing helmets, wetsuits and lifejackets. Anybody know more?

Nooksack is a narrow river with lots of wood....

On those boats they tell you if you get washed out just lie on your back and lift your feet.... the guide will come get you etc. Why wouldn't you want to lie on your back and move to towards a side as best you could? Appreciate any white water survival tips..

I've been WW kayaking for about 20 years - which is only relevant because it's given me the opportunity to take some long unplanned swims through heavy rapids.

The advice to float on your back with your feet and wait for rescue makes a ton of sense for commercial operators since it's easy to remember, one-size-fits-all, and will do more good than harm most of the time. Having said that, it's not what I or anyone else I know that's spent a long time in the WW game does when they find themselves swimming through a rapid. It's part of it, but a long ways from all of it.

If I had a few minutes to talk to someone on the shore that was interested in my take on WW swimming, here's more or less what I'd tell them.

1. Survival swimming is active swimming. Sometimes that means floating, sometimes that means swimming like hell - but it always means actively assessing the river conditions and hazards and making a series deliberate choices concerning your best chance of survival until get you back on the raft or safely out of the water.

2. The float-on-your-back-with-your-feet-up approach makes sense if there's an upright raft close enough to effect a rescue before you encounter the next rapid, float around a blind bend, etc - but even then you should be using your arms and legs to get yourself closer to the raft to hasten your own rescue. The closer you are, the more quickly they can rescue you, which will help them get other swimmers in the raft. Most of the time all this takes is some fairly casual strokes to move yourself closer or at least stay in throw-rope range. Think of yourself as an active participant in your own rescue. Use your eyes to assess the hazards waiting you downstream, use your mind to constantly assess the best strategy to use to effect your rescue (by yourself or others), and if possible use your voice to actively communicate with the people trying to rescue you.

3. Once you find yourself in a position where you are going to be swept into a rapid, it's time to start making choices about how you're going to navigate that rapid with your body. It sounds obvious - but if the rapid contains obvious hazards - the best way to survive them is to avoid them. Sounds easy enough - but I can't tell you the number of times I've seen experienced people get overwhelmed by the cold, etc and passively drift along in a trajectory that's going to get them tractor beamed into the meat of a rapid when looking downstream and taking a series of determined strokes would have allowed them to avoid it. Point your head away from the hazard at a 45 degree angle, take a few hard strokes, look downstream - decide whether it's time to take a few more strokes or assume the defensive floating position - and repeat as necessary.

Once you're in the rapid, it's time to start playing "Red Light, Green Light." If the current is so powerful that any effort to change your trajectory will be futile, that's the "Red Light" signal to float on your back with your feet up, while always looking for a "Green Light" moment that signals that it's time to start taking active measures to change your trajectory in the river. Is there an eddy line that'll keep you from getting sucked downstream into the next hazard? Swim for it! Are you heading for a big rock? Do what's necessary to orient your feet to the rock, get ready to push off with your feet, and start thinking of your next move. Can a hard push put you in a position where a couple of determined strokes will get you into softer water where you'll be able to get a breath or swim a few feet closer to shore? Is rock creating a break in the current that might be able to use to your advantage? etc, etc, etc.

4. Contra the bumper sticker that says "If it swells, ride it," if you see a significant "bulge" rising downstream of you - do what you can to avoid it. Same goes for a horizon line that you can't see the bottom of. There's almost never going to be a pleasant experience waiting for you on the downstream side. If avoiding either is impossible, focus on taking one or two good breaths, curl into a ball, and prepare yourself for a sustained submersion. Don't attempt to breathe until you can see the sky. If you feel the current relent, swim for the surface. When you've surfaced and gotten that breath - try to figure out if you're moving upstream or downstream. Moving upstream is very bad, and means that there's a high likelihood that you are going to be swept back into the hydraulic and recirculated. Focus on breathing - and try to make progress to the side of the hydraulic before you're swept under again. Even if you're doomed to go under again, by moving even a few feet away from the center of the hole you've improved the odds that you'll catch enough downstream current to be swept downstream when you get sucked under again. Repeat until you're out of the hydraulic or you've lost consciousness.

5. If you're being swept into a log-jam or strainer, do your best to avoid imitating a log. Is there any chance that pointing your head 45 degrees away and swimming like hell for a few seconds will get you past it? Is there a spot where the current is less powerful, is there a branch you can grab onto instead of a stretch of slick, peeled log? If all else fails and you're getting tractor-beamed into a log-jam no matter what, I personally think you're best bet is to swim aggressively towards the log and get as much of your torso as possible on top of the log as opposed to under it. Neither is good, but the more of your body you can get out of the current the better. That might give you the extra 20 seconds necessary for someone to get to you and keep you from getting sucked under. Sounds unlikely but someone doing just that gave me the time I needed to get hands on them in precisely those circumstances. Whatever position you are in when you encounter the log - the game isn't over. Is there anything within arm's reach you can grab onto to give yourself a better grip? To move laterally a couple of feet - maybe into less powerful current. Is there anything you can brace or push off of with your feet?

Even if you get swept under, it's not over until it's over. Can you see any light? Is there anything you can grab onto that'd get you even a few inches closer to safety? I realize that this is all starting to sound preposterous, but a former kayaking partner of mine and father of four managed to stay conscious and deliberately inchworm his way through an underwater sieve and bob back to the surface in a notoriously deadly rapid because he'd mentally prepared for such a moment and was determined to go down swinging if it ever came to that.

There are enough stories like his to make it worth taking heed of their example. One of my closest friends - and now former kayaking partner - fought with the same determination in a powerful recirculating hole until he lost consciousness. He resurfaced face-down, back-up, nearly 50 feet downstream from the hole, where we were able to intercept him in our kayaks, roll him over, and move him to shore a few feet before he would've been swept into the next series of rapids. Did refusing to give up until the bitter end save him? Hard to know - but at least the flood of sorrow and regret he felt for those he was going to leave behind was slightly leavened by the certainty that he'd never given up and kept fighting until the end.

6. If you either make it close to shore before the rapid, or run the full gauntlet and make it close to shore after, the standard advice you get is "never stand up in moving water." Again - that makes sense as bog-standard advice for a bus full of commercial rafting clients, but if someone has experience wading in rivers, my advice is "only try to stand up once you're in water you'd feel comfortable wading in." It's also worth stating that if the only "shore" that fate avails to you is a rock that you can clamber on top of to keep yourself from being swept into a much greater hazard, get yourself onto this "shore" and count your blessings. If nothing else - at least it will give you some time to catch your breath and consider your options in the unlikely event that there's zero chance anyone will be able to rescue you before cold and exposure overwhelm you.

7. If you're sufficiently motivated - invest a little bit of time preparing your mind for the unlikely event that you'll find yourself in a river-survival scenario. Watch a few YouTube videos, read a few first-person accounts, buy a used "whitewater rescue book" and leave it in the bathroom to thumb-through from time to time, or better yet, get a copy of "Kayak: The Animated Manual of Intermediate and Advanced Whitewater Technique" and thumb through the cartoons that illustrate river dynamics, what to do and what not to do, etc.

This probably also sounds a bit ridiculous, but the middle-aged guy I bought my first WW kayak from back in '02 gave me a book about kayaking and put a little note in the front that was part prophecy that if I took up kayaking I'd eventually find myself in a situation where I couldn't be sure if I'd survive, and part admonition that when that happened, I should "Never give up. Never. Stop. Fighting." That moment came around 12 months later (the learning curve is steep when you're being taught by bros in their 20's), and the only conscious thought I had during the series of sustained submersions and beatings was "Never. Stop. Fighting. Never Stop Fighting," which lead to a series of semi-instinctive actions that allowed me to survive.

Probably more input than anyone wanted, but hopefully it's worth the price you paid for it.

 

[Josh]

If I had a few minutes to talk to someone on the shore that was interested in my take on WW swimming, here's more or less what I'd tell them.

I'm not gonna lie, that whole post was more than a little scary. I've had plenty of risky hobbies in my life, and I'm sure WW would seem less sketchy once I learned more and spent time understand/experiencing the environment. But... I'm pretty sure that isn't going to happen in this lifetime.

Good advice though. Let's hope I remember it if I fuck up wading and go for a swim in a bad spot.

 

[Zak]

I'm not gonna lie, that whole post was more than a little scary. I've had plenty of risky hobbies in my life, and I'm sure WW would seem less sketchy once I learned more and spent time understand/experiencing the environment. But... I'm pretty sure that isn't going to happen in this lifetime.

Good advice though. Let's hope I remember it if I fuck up wading and go for a swim in a bad spot.

I've only had one unplanned swim in a rapid, when a raft with me and three other guys flipped upside down. It was completely overwhelming. I did not know which way was up, let alone where I was in the rapid. Each limb was pulled hard in different directions. It was loud. I was underwater a long time. The only thing I could do was trust my PFD to bring me to the surface eventually.

Maybe someone with more experience would have been able to take some effective action in the water, but I was completely in the river's hands and at it's mercy. Thankfully, we were all ok.

 

[Wadin' Boot]

@JayB that is some good reading and advice, thank you for taking the time and effort to write that out. I Like the triage idea, eyes up, look downstream and work to avoid the hydraulics that will kill you.

It's kinda like swimming in a rip, sure for most just let the rip carry you out, swim parallel to shore, and then try going back in may be OK advice, but having surfed for years and in a big swell, you need to be thinking of other plans too- like what if the surf pushes you straight back into the rip? or where can you stage on a sandbar and reassess etc etc. Some of the advice is too simple

 

[JayB]

First supplementary post:

For pretty much everyone that learns to WW kayak in the greater Seattle area, Boulder Drop on the Skykomish defines "benchmark class IV rapid" Once you can run this rapid skillfully and confidently within a certain band of flows, you can be reasonably confident that you can handle yourself on just about any Class IV rapid in the country. Because of that status, it's a rapid that most people migrate to when they're ready to "step it up" to a legit Class IV drop, and consequently it deals out far more absolutely savage multi-stage beatings than any rapid in the area. If you've "stepped it up" on Boulder Drop, it's almost certain that you've had your ass handed to you multiple times by this rapid, and you develop a very healthy respect for the rapid and the hazards lurking within it.

Boulder drop is also run by commercial rafting companies that put it well into the Class V range. After my experiences on the rapid, hearing other people's close calls, etc - I'd personally never run that rapid at those levels in a watercraft where my life is in the hands of someone that I haven't thoroughly vetted, much less in the hands of a person that I haven't thoroughly vetted that's also trying to manage a gaggle of totally inexperienced randos. When the runoff is in full swing, I've often stopped on Highway 2, watched the procession of rafts heading into the meat, looked at their expectant faces and listened to the whoops when they encounter the first breaking wave and thought "Those motherf*ckers don't have the slightest idea about the scope and ferocity of the indifferent vortex of terror that's rumbling underneath them, and if they did there's not a chance in hell they'd be high-fiving on that raft right now."

Otto Von Bismarck - The Iron Chancellor - once remarked that "God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and The United States of America." Evidently he's extended that providence to commercial rafting clients running Boulder Drop, endowed their guides with special powers, or both - because fatalities are astonishingly rare. Anyhow - one of the outfits that runs, or ran Boulder Drop broke the rapid down into sections, and provided segment-by-segment instructions for swimmers that combines dry wit mixed with a bit of gallows humor and a dollop of Zen, that also embeds quite a bit of useful advice for anyone that finds themselves in a situation where they're swimming for survival.

"If you are swimming at this point:​

Swim for river left (photo right). You might make it. Self-rescue becomes possible for the first time.

Don't use your energy to swim to the right. The Skykomish is clearly against that. Relax, breathe only when you see the sky. If you panic now, you will increase your chance of injury.

With any luck, someone will help with your rescue. Look for a throwline coming from the shore.

Or, even better, a raft could come to your rescue.

What happens if you are not rescued, either by yourself or with some help? Look for more whitewater swimming ahead. You are about to enter a Class IV rapid North Cascades calls "The Weir". (Others call this rapid "Ledge", still others, "Marbleshoot").

The Weir contains two confirmed hydraulics that will hold bodies. The first bad hole occurs at the top drop, right of center. This hole becomes a real hazard around 4500 cfs. Always try to swim to the left to avoid this dangerous hole.

Near the end of the Weir Rapid lies Bell's Well. Between 4000 and 6000 cfs, watch out. This hole usually recirculates swimmers. Expect to swim for the bottom if you drop into Bell's Well.

Regardless of where the river washes you, stay positive and enjoy the zen of the sublime. Terrifying, awe-inspiring, indifferent to your suffering, the Skykomish rolls along...."

 

[JayB]

 

[JayB]

The above cartoons are from William Nealy's (contemporary and kindred spirit of Sheridan Anderson of "The Curtis Creek Manifesto, to whom the book is dedicated) Kayak, and illustrate some of what I tried to convey in my comments above. I poured over this book when I started kayaking, but aside from recommending it to people taking up the sport, I haven't cracked the cover in at least 15 years or consciously thought of the content. That makes it all the more interesting to me that the knowledge that I've accumulated in the meantime more or less lead me to recapitulate the wisdom embedded in these cartoons without even realizing that's what I was doing.....

 

[Tim L]

I was SWR'd off the Nooksack on MLK Day '05, we didn't expect to walk away and it made the papers. Also pulled a gentleman out of 42 degree water at Pass a few years later. Unworn PFD in boat, it was the only thing that didn't sink when his pram overturned.
I have a lot of respect for water of any kind, still or moving. Any combo of cold, swift or high certainly adds, but if it's water it's dangerous. What I can say - it all happens shockingly fast and unexpected. You can plan and say all you want, but it really doesn't go anything like that. The water decides and it doesn't care who you are or how much you know. Game is over after the preventative stage.

 

[SKYKO]

I've been WW kayaking for about 20 years - which is only relevant because it's given me the opportunity to take some long unplanned swims through heavy rapids.

The advice to float on your back with your feet and wait for rescue makes a ton of sense for commercial operators since it's easy to remember, one-size-fits-all, and will do more good than harm most of the time. Having said that, it's not what I or anyone else I know that's spent a long time in the WW game does when they find themselves swimming through a rapid. It's part of it, but a long ways from all of it.

If I had a few minutes to talk to someone on the shore that was interested in my take on WW swimming, here's more or less what I'd tell them.

1. Survival swimming is active swimming. Sometimes that means floating, sometimes that means swimming like hell - but it always means actively assessing the river conditions and hazards and making a series deliberate choices concerning your best chance of survival until get you back on the raft or safely out of the water.

2. The float-on-your-back-with-your-feet-up approach makes sense if there's an upright raft close enough to effect a rescue before you encounter the next rapid, float around a blind bend, etc - but even then you should be using your arms and legs to get yourself closer to the raft to hasten your own rescue. The closer you are, the more quickly they can rescue you, which will help them get other swimmers in the raft. Most of the time all this takes is some fairly casual strokes to move yourself closer or at least stay in throw-rope range. Think of yourself as an active participant in your own rescue. Use your eyes to assess the hazards waiting you downstream, use your mind to constantly assess the best strategy to use to effect your rescue (by yourself or others), and if possible use your voice to actively communicate with the people trying to rescue you.

3. Once you find yourself in a position where you are going to be swept into a rapid, it's time to start making choices about how you're going to navigate that rapid with your body. It sounds obvious - but if the rapid contains obvious hazards - the best way to survive them is to avoid them. Sounds easy enough - but I can't tell you the number of times I've seen experienced people get overwhelmed by the cold, etc and passively drift along in a trajectory that's going to get them tractor beamed into the meat of a rapid when looking downstream and taking a series of determined strokes would have allowed them to avoid it. Point your head away from the hazard at a 45 degree angle, take a few hard strokes, look downstream - decide whether it's time to take a few more strokes or assume the defensive floating position - and repeat as necessary.

Once you're in the rapid, it's time to start playing "Red Light, Green Light." If the current is so powerful that any effort to change your trajectory will be futile, that's the "Red Light" signal to float on your back with your feet up, while always looking for a "Green Light" moment that signals that it's time to start taking active measures to change your trajectory in the river. Is there an eddy line that'll keep you from getting sucked downstream into the next hazard? Swim for it! Are you heading for a big rock? Do what's necessary to orient your feet to the rock, get ready to push off with your feet, and start thinking of your next move. Can a hard push put you in a position where a couple of determined strokes will get you into softer water where you'll be able to get a breath or swim a few feet closer to shore? Is rock creating a break in the current that might be able to use to your advantage? etc, etc, etc.

4. Contra the bumper sticker that says "If it swells, ride it," if you see a significant "bulge" rising downstream of you - do what you can to avoid it. Same goes for a horizon line that you can't see the bottom of. There's almost never going to be a pleasant experience waiting for you on the downstream side. If avoiding either is impossible, focus on taking one or two good breaths, curl into a ball, and prepare yourself for a sustained submersion. Don't attempt to breathe until you can see the sky. If you feel the current relent, swim for the surface. When you've surfaced and gotten that breath - try to figure out if you're moving upstream or downstream. Moving upstream is very bad, and means that there's a high likelihood that you are going to be swept back into the hydraulic and recirculated. Focus on breathing - and try to make progress to the side of the hydraulic before you're swept under again. Even if you're doomed to go under again, by moving even a few feet away from the center of the hole you've improved the odds that you'll catch enough downstream current to be swept downstream when you get sucked under again. Repeat until you're out of the hydraulic or you've lost consciousness.

5. If you're being swept into a log-jam or strainer, do your best to avoid imitating a log. Is there any chance that pointing your head 45 degrees away and swimming like hell for a few seconds will get you past it? Is there a spot where the current is less powerful, is there a branch you can grab onto instead of a stretch of slick, peeled log? If all else fails and you're getting tractor-beamed into a log-jam no matter what, I personally think you're best bet is to swim aggressively towards the log and get as much of your torso as possible on top of the log as opposed to under it. Neither is good, but the more of your body you can get out of the current the better. That might give you the extra 20 seconds necessary for someone to get to you and keep you from getting sucked under. Sounds unlikely but someone doing just that gave me the time I needed to get hands on them in precisely those circumstances. Whatever position you are in when you encounter the log - the game isn't over. Is there anything within arm's reach you can grab onto to give yourself a better grip? To move laterally a couple of feet - maybe into less powerful current. Is there anything you can brace or push off of with your feet?

Even if you get swept under, it's not over until it's over. Can you see any light? Is there anything you can grab onto that'd get you even a few inches closer to safety? I realize that this is all starting to sound preposterous, but a former kayaking partner of mine and father of four managed to stay conscious and deliberately inchworm his way through an underwater sieve and bob back to the surface in a notoriously deadly rapid because he'd mentally prepared for such a moment and was determined to go down swinging if it ever came to that.

There are enough stories like his to make it worth taking heed of their example. One of my closest friends - and now former kayaking partner - fought with the same determination in a powerful recirculating hole until he lost consciousness. He resurfaced face-down, back-up, nearly 50 feet downstream from the hole, where we were able to intercept him in our kayaks, roll him over, and move him to shore a few feet before he would've been swept into the next series of rapids. Did refusing to give up until the bitter end save him? Hard to know - but at least the flood of sorrow and regret he felt for those he was going to leave behind was slightly leavened by the certainty that he'd never given up and kept fighting until the end.

6. If you either make it close to shore before the rapid, or run the full gauntlet and make it close to shore after, the standard advice you get is "never stand up in moving water." Again - that makes sense as bog-standard advice for a bus full of commercial rafting clients, but if someone has experience wading in rivers, my advice is "only try to stand up once you're in water you'd feel comfortable wading in." It's also worth stating that if the only "shore" that fate avails to you is a rock that you can clamber on top of to keep yourself from being swept into a much greater hazard, get yourself onto this "shore" and count your blessings. If nothing else - at least it will give you some time to catch your breath and consider your options in the unlikely event that there's zero chance anyone will be able to rescue you before cold and exposure overwhelm you.

7. If you're sufficiently motivated - invest a little bit of time preparing your mind for the unlikely event that you'll find yourself in a river-survival scenario. Watch a few YouTube videos, read a few first-person accounts, buy a used "whitewater rescue book" and leave it in the bathroom to thumb-through from time to time, or better yet, get a copy of "Kayak: The Animated Manual of Intermediate and Advanced Whitewater Technique" and thumb through the cartoons that illustrate river dynamics, what to do and what not to do, etc.

This probably also sounds a bit ridiculous, but the middle-aged guy I bought my first WW kayak from back in '02 gave me a book about kayaking and put a little note in the front that was part prophecy that if I took up kayaking I'd eventually find myself in a situation where I couldn't be sure if I'd survive, and part admonition that when that happened, I should "Never give up. Never. Stop. Fighting." That moment came around 12 months later (the learning curve is steep when you're being taught by bros in their 20's), and the only conscious thought I had during the series of sustained submersions and beatings was "Never. Stop. Fighting. Never Stop Fighting," which lead to a series of semi-instinctive actions that allowed me to survive.

Probably more input than anyone wanted, but hopefully it's worth the price you paid for it.

Great post, thank you. Shit happens fast on the river sometimes, complacency can really kick you in the nuts.

 

[Draketake]

Thanks to all for this insight and input. Great deal of knowledge and experience here.

Prayer sent for the men and their families/friends.

Bob

 

[Divad]

Thank you @JayB for all the info, I enjoyed reading it knowing that although I don’t kayak it applies to my river fishing.

Will have to grab that book too, the illustrations and quirky delivery seem spot on for the best chance at remembering such when needed.

 

[Divad]

I was SWR'd off the Nooksack on MLK Day '05, we didn't expect to walk away and it made the papers. Also pulled a gentleman out of 42 degree water at Pass a few years later. Unworn PFD in boat, it was the only thing that didn't sink when his pram overturned.
I have a lot of respect for water of any kind, still or moving. Any combo of cold, swift or high certainly adds, but if it's water it's dangerous. What I can say - it all happens shockingly fast and unexpected. You can plan and say all you want, but it really doesn't go anything like that. The water decides and it doesn't care who you are or how much you know. Game is over after the preventative stage.

I like everything you said until the last sentence. Even if true, going out without a fight is not something I intend to do or encourage.

I’m sure your experiences have driven strong reasoning but I can’t help say, the game for me will have just begun. Which I also think might correlate with the differences in where we stand in taking on a whitewater trip currently in our lives.

 

[Old Man]

I once read in the Everett Herald where a rafter got stuck in one of those holes on Boulder Drop. They found his body later in the week.

 

[Paige]

May 1984 we bought our dad a white water trip on the Wenatchee river for Father's day. A gentlemen he worked with had recently became a WW guide with a company and we decided to go with them with 2 other close family friends.

We were the last boat to leave and the guide said we were a little undermaned but there was no one else to even things up. Dad and sisters boyfriend a a freshman in college up front. my 2 sisters and mom, my friend and me. I wanted to up front but the guide asked me to be in the back as I was the 3rd strongest person in the raft at 15yrs old.

We pushed off and started going through all the steps trying to get used to maneuvering the raft per the guides instructions. Which didn't go as planned and it came pretty clear we had very little control but managed to make it to Preshashston dam were we took a small break.

We pushed off again to go over the small step dam, there was a nice smooth tongue that everyone was going through. We ended up going to far to the left and slammed into the recirculating wall of WW. It was not big but that started a series of events when my dad screamed out that his leg was broken and had dropped his oar.
We are now down the strongest person in the raft!

Now we are at the complete mercy of the river and had absolutely zero control and with none of the others boats of the company in site, we were on our own. We would scream and try and wave down other groups and they would just wave back thinkingwe were having fun. At some point we lost another oar and now down two people, it's amazing we never flipped!

At one point we were pushed closer to the right bank and the guide was trying to get us to eddy out behind some small points but it never worked. We were running right along the edge and the guide said to try and grab the brush to slow us down some, well ok!

I grab on and promptly launched myself and the guide out of the raft! I get stuck under the raft and my sister happened to see my arms and drags me in, I had know idea where I was or what happened as it was so quick. As this was happening the guide called over the front of the raft and my mom yels
WHAT THE FUCK ARE DOING UP THERE!
The first time anyone has heard mom say the F word!

At the same time this all happened my sisters boyfriend was nearly decapitated by a wire hanging off a steal pipe hanging over the water!

Soon after all this there was a big rock point at a bridge and it took everything we had to get that eddy and finally come to a stop. The guide scrambled up the steep bank to get help, was about 1.5 to 2 hrs before the EMT's arrived.

Because it was such a steep bank they wanted to lower dad in the raft down to the bridge about 50yrds down stream at which point my dad told the to fuck off and said he would rather crawl up the bank than be pushed of in the raft by himself.

We ended up hauling him up the steep bank in the stretcher with everyone's help and a rope and pully system. We only dropped him 3 times that would result in some more choice words from dad.

All in all he ended up with a Tib/Fib break and shatterd ankle with 2 steel plates and 4 screws. Five years latter after they were removed we made a plaque with a raft and the plates and screws glued to it and gave it to him for Fathers day!

Happy Father's day dad, I miss you!

And happy Father's day to all the fathers here!

 

[krusty]

A terrible tragedy.

Rivers are inherently dangerous places...and I think many of the guide services sort of 'minimize' discussions with their prospective clients about such risks.

Having seen or been on WW raft trips with other clients that should not be undertaking such activities, it's apparent that the conflict between a vendor's economic survival and client suitability is not easily resolved.

It's particularly apparent with family groups; there are often frail elderly members that have been essentially coerced into such a trip by family members who themselves don't accurately understand the risks and perceive the experience in the same light as a thrilling but completely safe 'Splash Mountain' amusement park ride.

 

[Dustin Chromers]

Two killed during river rafting trip on Nooksack River

A commercially operated river raft with four customers and a guide on board overturned on the river.

www.kiro7.com

Damn, I do love an occasional whitewater trip, and that accident is hard to read. two dead, both wearing helmets, wetsuits and lifejackets. Anybody know more?

Nooksack is a narrow river with lots of wood....

On those boats they tell you if you get washed out just lie on your back and lift your feet.... the guide will come get you etc. Why wouldn't you want to lie on your back and move to towards a side as best you could? Appreciate any white water survival tips....

This is generally given as advice to raft customers to prevent foot entrapment. Like Jay I've been kayaking for almost three decades and two of those decades in class five plus water. There is rules and sometimes rules need to be broken. Knowing when to get to shore and when to stay in the flow is an instinct and art built through time in. Always sad to hear about someone passing in a river. It's such a sacred place that makes you feel free. It's a shame when it sets one free from their early vessel.