Several times during my whitewater kayaking days I rescued people who had been swimming near a rapid and got caught in the current and flushed throught the rapid...no pfd... no brains. Usually I was able to give them a chance to grab my back grab loop and before they could do anything panicy I would start paddling them to shore. It these cases the persons hung on for dear life and in one case had to be pried off my boat when we reached shore. Only in two cases did I get my body close and in these two cases the swimmers were to the point of exhaustion when I reached them. Also in both these cases I needed another boat to pull me to shore while I held on to the victim My advice is that if you approach a drowning panicky person either give them one end of your boat or toss them a paddle float or gear bag or whatever....if you toss them your pfd you may (probably) are putting your life at risk. Bob Sitka *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Aug 17 2000 - 12:53:50 PDT
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