The real story… »
By Bryan McDonald on Apr 27, 2009 in Uncategorized | 2 Comments
I am writing this for several reasons:
- to set the story straight
- to help me remember
- to reflect
On Wednesday, April 22, 2009 Chris Collett and myself took a fishing trip to the Little Red River. They were generating two units at Greers Ferry Lake which meant that the water level was very high and the current was swift. Around 1:00 pm we noticed two red gas tanks floating down the river. My first reaction was, “hey, I can use a new gas tank.” Chris mentioned that maybe we should go upstream to see if there might be someone who needed our help.
We did, and there was.
An older couple (in their 70′s, I’d guess) had hit a tree going sideways and flipped their boat. By the time we arrived, with the help of the property owners, they had bailed all the water out of their boat but were unable to crank their motor. The hero in me (ahem) volunteered to tow (float) them down stream to Lobo Landing, where they had parked their vehicle.
This is where I made my mistake. I have no experience towing people down stream. We tied about 20 feet of rope to the back of my boat and the frond of their boat. I later learned that this was not the thing to do. When we pushed off we immediately began going down stream (at a rather high rate of speed). They had caught their boat on the same tree that had originally caused them trouble, which pivoted us into an adjacent dock causing us to capsize. Neither of us had life vests on (another mistake). I found myself caught in the anchor line and trapped under my sinking boat. When I was able to untangle myself from the rope I was also under the dock.
When I totally freed myself from the anchor/dock situation I climbed on my now upside down boat and wondered how in the world this happened. At this point Chris was hanging on to the older couples boat about 100 yards in front of me. Neither Chris or myself know how he got to their boat. My next concern was that my sinking boat would cause the older couple’s boat under too. We soon found out that the line had snapped, which was a good thing because I do not know that the older couple would have made it out of the river alive.
I soon began to realize that my anchor had caught the bottom of the river and was causing my boat to sink. By this time the other boat was 150 yards in front of me. I began to swim in the 40 degree water to try to catch up to them. When I arrived, I could barely feel my extremities, but I knew that we were approaching Libby Shoals and that we needed to pull the boat to a dock.
Somehow we managed to get the boat to a dock and tie it off. We both knew that we would not be able to hold on much longer because of the chilly water. Neither one of us could pull ourselves onto the dock (which was about 36 inches above the water level) as we could not feel out legs or arms. Our only option was to shimmy ourselves around to the back of the dock and climb up the steep embankment.
By this time we heard the sirens of the Pine Snag Volunteer Fire Department. The rest is history.
…well almost…
When I got onto the dock, I realized that I had brought our dog Bailey along. She loved fishing with me. She did not make it. I will say that she had a really good last few weeks…camping, fishing, a trip to Alabama…and one heck of a fishing trip. I will miss her!
I almost drowned. I almost died. I have thought a lot about that over the past few days. I will definitely do some things differently!
