[Paddlewise] Lou Gills Case#2

Responding to some questions from Matt Broze:
(and other issues)

The news carried reports that a body was found yesterday in the 
vicinity of the 3700 block of Canal Rd on the Potomac River. If you 
put that into Mapquest, the "star" on the map falls just about over 
the Washington Canoe Club on the land between the river and the canal on 
the east side of the river. If you switch to the satellite image of 
that area, you can see the large white clubhouse and the Key Bridge 
just down stream from the clubhouse.

By yesterday, the water level had dropped back to 20,000 cfs and 5 ft 
on the gauge. On Nov 21 it was running 100,000 cfs and nearly 10 ft 
on the gauge. 

Alzheimers disease does not seem to be an issue here. His mood lately 
was considered to be upbeat. He was present at a dinner the previous 
evening and talked about taking his canoe, instead of the kayak, out on 
the river the next day, because of the cooler water temperature now in the river. 
The canoe required two people to carry it. Since there was no one around 
to help him on Friday, he took his kayak down to the dock. He 
regularly paddled (trained) on these waters from this dock, which is 
visible in the high resolution satellite image.

While I say Alzheimers does not seem to be an issue in this case, I believe 
there is possibly another factor at work here. Lou Gills was a past 
president of the Washington Canoe Club. He was a club member there for 
decades. I am certain that he had seen the river in every possible 
stage from well above flood stage (~450,000cfs) to serious drought 
conditions. No way he should not know what the river is doing just by 
looking at it. However, I know a number of senior citizens that seem 
to loose their ability to make rational judgments at times. Sometimes 
it seems to be attacks of cussedness: "I'm going to by God do it; get 
out of my way!" We have stopped several seniors determined to go out 
in weather conditions that they were clearly not prepared to handle. 
These fellows are friends of ours of long standing. We will not allow 
them to die on our watch. We give them credit for daring, but bring 
them back another day.

At 100,000 cfs, the river must have been really rolling. I wish I 
knew the current speed. It isn't clear to me that, at that level, he 
would have been able to get back upstream to the docks, even if he 
had launched successfully.

Just a few weeks ago, Lou was racing in Seniors competition races in 
Canada. The boat was not too much for him to handle in normal 
flatwater, warm water conditions with other boaters out with him on 
the water. Even if he was skilled in handling his Fenga, there is no way the 
boat was intended to negotiate crossing constantly writhing current 
lines. I believe he would certainly have been knocked over while 
attempting turns and dodging debris in the river that day. I believe 
much younger paddlers would have had a real bad time on the river at 
100,000 cfs. The Fenja ain't no slalom boat and rolling was not 
possible.

I agree that there may be worse ways to expire, but I never will 
agree that this is a worthy way to go out. I say that because, if I 
die on the sea or river, I want it to be after I have worn the PFD, 
worn the wetsuit, trained to a level that I believed could handle the 
challenge. If I did all that and still got beat, OK, I can accept it 
as a way to go out. I do not wish to die for failing to dress for 
conditions within a few feet of shore on a day not worth the risk.
Let me at least get beat when I am prepared to fight the good fight.

I will post again on this case when we have more information.

Chuck Sutherland
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