Remember that rescue scenario involving two non-swimmers drowning? Of course, you do, it raised a lot of heat!!! :-) Here is a postscript of a sorts from yesterday. A woman jumped into the Hudson in almost the exact same spot as where the two fellows drowned. She was an apparent attempted suicide. Just south of there, construction works were building a new pier (part of a park extension and Donald Trump's contribution in line with his massive apartment complex going up nearby). They spotted her and threw her a life jacket or life ring. She at first refused to grab it but then did. One of the construction workers was then lowered on a rope by his co-workers and swam to her. He hung on to her until the harbor police arrived. From photos he was brawny and she was quite small. A prescript: Back in the early 1990s I was on a round-Manhattan kayak trip. We were on the Hudson passing in front of 125th St. when people up on the pier started shouting and pointing out that someone was in the water. We thought it was just a prank and all I could see was what looked like a coconut floating until a face suddenly appeared as well. I took it for some NY crazie and hesitated to go in with my single kayak. But right next to me were two strapping brothers in a double Klepper. I sent them in for the rescue on the theory that they had a real stable boat and with two of them could deal with some one who might go nuts on them. It turned out the person was quite small. How small? The paddler in the back was able to pick him up by the back of his shirt and hold him high like a fisherman deciding whether to keep this particular catch or not. Before they grabbed him, the man had kept trying to swim away from them and submerge himself into the water. The back paddler threw him between them on his spraydeck and they paddled back against the current to a small beach where we could already hear sirens and ambulances coming. One of our other paddlers had a cell phone and had placed the 911 call. This was almost a decade ago, when cell phones were a rarity. He had managed to rent one for the trip so that his family could follow us around the island taking pictures and bringing him fruit. I could overhear his conversation with the 911 dispatcher. "Emergency, we have a drowing victim on the Hudson River and need assistance. I am in a kayak on the Hudson at 125th St....Yes, really I am!!! This is no hoax!! I am in a kayak!! Don't hang up!!! My name is X X, I live at YYY, my SS number is xxxxxxx" I almost fell out of my kayak with laughter over the interchange between them. Nowadays sometimes if some one is doing a rescue or rolling class, dozens of skaters and bicycling passerbys get on their cell phones and call 911. The poor practicioner rolls up to a surprising close up view of the hull of a police boat!!! ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** 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 24 2000 - 08:41:59 PDT
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