RE: [Paddlewise] Kayakers helping others (long)

This one was a canoeing rescue rather than kayak.  This happened during my
second year of WW paddling shortly after I had taken a WW rescue class.

  A bright morning in mid June found me paddling solo on a familiar section
of the Wolf River in northern Wisconsin. (disclaimer/warning - don't paddle
WW solo!)  This section was a Class II-III river, and the water was high and
could be pushy in places.  I was paddling Dagger Encore easily, stopping
frequently to play in holes and generally having a good time; then as I
rounded a gentle bend I saw two guys standing on shore waving their arms and
shouting and I began a ferry across the river to see what the problem was.
I then noticed two other people hanging onto a large rock about 8 or nine
feet across and could just see what appeared to be a canoe wrapped around
the rack and almost completely submerged.  The rock was about 50 feet from
shore and the water between it and the near shore was deep and fast. Passing
the rock and the two people I could see that they were wet and wearing
shorts and PFD's;  I yelled to them to stay there and landed in an eddy a
little downstream from them and their buddies on shore.  Grabbing my throw
rope and first aid kit I pulled the canoe up on shore and scrambled through
the brush and rocks until I met the two on shore - they were dry and unhurt
except for a small cut on one fellow's hand.  They told me that their
partners had gotten stuck against the rock by the current and then the canoe
had tipped and swamped, getting trapped by the water against the rock.  The
two paddlers had managed to hang on to the canoe and climbed onto the rock
where they were trying to dislodge the canoe.  A tough job with a 17 foot
canoe filled with water and the full force of the current pinning it against
the rock!  The two on shore said that they had been there for about twenty
minutes but couldn't help from shore because they had no ropes.  They knew
they couldn't help by launching their canoe from upstream and paddling down
to their friends - thank goodness for that!
  I figured that the most important thing was to get the guys out of the
water and back on shore where we could start to get them warmed up and
explained the plan to the two on shore to use the throw rope to 'pendulum'
their buddies to shore.
  Yelling to the rock-bound pair I threw the throw-bag to the rock and one
of them grabbed it but then just held it.  I yelled again that we would
swing him into shore (I had the other two holding the straps of my PFD as I
belayed the swimmer) and he finally agreed - the only thing that I hadn't
accounted for was _where_ he'd end up - an undercut section of bank with no
eddy.  It got a little rough running through the brush doing a dynamic belay
but I managed to finally swing him into the same eddy that I had pulled my
canoe into.  He was cold from the water even though the day was in the 70's
and one of his pals gave him a dry cotton sweatshirt to wear. (no polypro in
this group...)
  Back up-stream for guy #2 - now standing in the water up to his chest
trying to lift/shift one end of the boat!  Apparently it was his canoe and
he wasn't going to lose it to the river gods!  He wasn't going to leave
without it - so I explained to the gang of three how we were going to try a
vector pull to try to shift the canoe enough to get it off the rock - this
time we all knew where and how it would have to be landed.  I threw the rope
to the rock and had the last guy tie the rope off to a thwart of the canoe,
then pulled it as taut as the four of us could - to no effect.  OK, time for
the vector pull, tying the rope off to a solid tree and applying force to
the taut line at a different angle to try to effect a different angle of
force on the canoe - still no motion.  Here's where I pulled a stunt that
could have cost me my life - I decided to handline out to the swamped canoe
to rig the line in a way that would allow us to roll the boat, using the
current to help.  BAD IDEA!  The line wasn't tight enough to keep me out of
the water and it was angled against the current. Without all the gory
details - as I struggled against the current fighting to make headway I
realized to it would have been far, far better to have dragged my canoe back
upstream and paddled out to the rock.  It was probably one of the most
dangerous and stupid things I've ever done and it nearly did me in.  But my
dues to the river gods were paid up that day I guess.  Or I was just plain
lucky.
  After taking a few minutes to recover I finally managed to rig a biner and
a loop so that it would exert a rolling force on the canoe.  There was no
way I was going to do the rope stunt again or let the other guy (I never did
learn any names) do it.  He had found a place where he could stand and lift
at one end, although I was hesitant about him being in water that deep and
fast - one slip would wash him downstream and possibly into a real
emergency.  He lifted, I pulled, the three shoreside guys pulled, and
pulled, and pulled, and finally it broke loose.  The fellow in the water
lost his footing when the canoe broke loose, but managed to hang onto the
boat as his friends swung it ashore.  I swam back to shore ( I was wearing a
wetsuit) and after checking that everyone was OK we turned to the canoe -
those ABS Old Towns are tough!  It was dented pretty badly and a thwart had
broken along with some damage to the gunwales, but it didn't break.  I told
them to support one end on a log and jump on the dent to knock it out as I
repacked my boat and prepared to leave.   One guy offered me some money for
"saving" them - I shook my head, tried to stifle my burgeoning ego and told
myself that I had been darn lucky.
  The best thing that might have happened that day was that 4 totally
unprepared and ill-equipped fellows had an easy lesson in what the water
could do and what a difference some training and the right gear can make.  I
hope that day made at least one WW paddler out of that group.  I got a good
lesson in how different and difficult some rescue situations can be - it's a
whole different ball game than the staged "incidents" you deal with in
training scenarios.

Dave Seng
older & wiser in
Juneau, Alaska
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