Thoughts from an Incident Report

As a novice paddler I remember being fearful of the Potomac River. Every year a number of kayakers drown in it and I was naturally wary. I developed a saying "the Potomac eats people." This guided nearly all my decisions about when and where to paddle the river. I tended only to paddle the quiet bays or the wide lazy area near Algonkian Regional Park, Virginia. As I became more skilled and more familiar with the river itself the acute fear was replaced by respect. Sometimes the conditions on the river still scare me. Generally, though, I am very comfortable with all its faces and feel confident piloting groups on the non-white water parts of it within an hour's drive of my house.

Belle Haven Marina, and the area of the river just south of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, looms large in the common lore of accidents in the area. The river is wide and there are many crazy little currents. The river looks slow moving but is deceptively strong. The wide open fetch and high boat traffic can create many wind and wake driven waves. We sometimes "surf" here. It is not my favorite put in. It is a privately run Marina and so has really tight parking, but does have kayak-friendly green carpet launch. The river tends to be muddy here, and the banks are smelly. Also, during the summer the bugs are awful.

When we launched the day we helped the young man, the novice paddler with hypothermia, we were headed out for an easy paddle and picnic. This particular kind of trip we call a "House Envy Tour." Paddling near the shore one can view how the 1% lives. Knowing that the river rises and falls with the tides and that it also floods regularly colors how one views the mansions along the bank. Just being able to afford a very large home that might get wiped out by the river says quite a lot about the owner's wealth and status.

We played around the piers belonging to the great houses, side slipping, high and low brace turns...

(photo credits, all taken by Dennis Green)

I had just had hip surgery, 10 days prior. I was not the first person to leave their boat to assist that young man. I dearly wanted to avoid a slip and fall with a still-draining incision on my hip. But this did not stop me from helping. It just meant I had to use the skills I had available to render the aid I could. When I think about what I would have done had I come upon him alone I know, without a doubt, that I would have radioed for help. I might not have ever left my boat, knowing that a slip and fall could be really terrible. But I could still help. I could talk to him, call the First Responders. I could make sure he was not alone. If this was all I could do, it would have been enough. I still could have potentially saved his life. With just a radio call, a phone call, I could still render aid.

During debrief we talked about other things we could have done to help him. Wilderness First Aid training informed us that this was not a WFA situation. We were less than 1 hour from definitive care. Therefore, getting acknowledgement, yes. Wrapping him in emergency blankets, yes. Getting him to that care ASAP, yes. Had it been a WFA situation we could have: piled our spray skirts under him to better insulate him from the cold ground, we would have stripped his wet clothes off and replaced them with dry clothes, and loaded him into an emergency bivy sack. We could have provided our own body heat to warm him, and fed him a candy bar and warm water if he could eat and drink. We would still need evac but these would be things we could do to try and stabilize him while waiting for extraction.

But all in all, I feel the only mistake we made was letting him lay down. In the scramble to pull the skiff up and get blankets ready for him to lay on we very briefly turned our attention away from the victim. One of us should have been holding him, supporting him. Within seconds of the crying stopping we were patting him "Hey buddy," no response. The big guy who rode over in the skiff started getting him up into a fireman's carry and my husband lifted him up on the guy's shoulder. This was the scariest moment for us, electric. The two of them lifted him over the side of the skiff and onto the heavy blanket. I saw his arm move a bit. I recognized he might need CPR at any moment but felt like we needed to get him to the EMTs that were on their way to the Marina. I am still feeling thankful, so thankful, that we did enough.

This is how "the Potomac eats people."

On social media the event and our write ups created a conversation amongst our paddling community. We were never in any danger ourselves, but some one called us heroes after we helped that young man. I think what they really meant was that we cared. We cared enough to stop. In this busy world people so often say "some one else will take care of that," and pass right on by. I know how hard it is to know when and what the right thing to do is, in a crisis. I want to push people just a bit. I want you to do something in a crisis. Don't stand there and just watch. Use your phone, call 911. Run for help, or just hold the hand of someone who needs it. Be there. 

The chance to save some one's life does not happen to people who do nothing. Make space in your life for the extraordinary. Every one of us is capable of being a life saver. Be that person.