How do you turn a fun fishing trip into a battle for survival?
Just add water.
Lots of water. Lots of rushing, clear, cold water. Also, you need a rootball from an old tree. Mix in a swift current that grabs your 20-ft. boat and flips it when it slams against the snag and presto.
In less than 30 seconds, the boat was sinking. I scrambled to get my son on the part of the boat that was above the surface. Then I grabbed the keys and phones out of my pants pockets and got them in my jacket’s upper pockets before they got wet. My friend Jim, who was driving the boat, hung onto the back, securing what he could and fighting to keep from being swept downstream himself. Jim and I made sure my son’s lifejacket was secure. Check. Water pushed against the boat and scoured the river bottom, quickly making it too deep for me to touch. All three of us remained remarkably calm.
We watched as the contents of our boat floated downstream.
On the sandbar nearby were three people fishing — two guys and a girl. I guess you can say that guardian angels sometimes own rod and reels. The two men sprung into action and hopped into their boat. They chased our stuff and gathered it, placing it safely on the sandbar. I called them over and rescued my son off the top of the boat. I handed them my jacket — the keys and the phones were soon safe, too. They then came and picked Jim up. He was in a dangerous position and was at risk of being swept loose by the current.
I slipped down and tried to dislodge the boat. The cold water was beginning to make me shiver (thankfully we were in the warmer, calmer Buffalo River and not the White River, which was 52 degrees and had a much swifter current.) The two guys came over to the boat and the three of us started to try to dislodge it off the snag. That’s when I slipped and the current caught me in its grasp.
What happened next was pure panic.
There was a drag chain on the front of the boat. It was a small stretch of chain tied to a long rope, designed to slow the boat as you fish. Somehow, it had gotten wrapped around my leg. As I got swept away from rocking boat by the current, the line pulled tight, snapping my ankle. I can best describe what happened next as what it must feel like to be waterboarded.
Paul LaCoste’s Fit4Change became a Godsend. I did the mother of all sit-ups as I struggled to keep my head above the water. And then I reached the chain and started to try to unwrap it from my throbbing ankle. It must have taken a few seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime. I feared the boat breaking lose and dragging me by the leg, drowning me as it floated downstream. I howled for help, hoping someone had a knife to cut me loose. The river’s power was dragging me under. On Good Friday, none-the-less. “Great,” I thought, “What a day to die.”
Then I got the chain lose. I broke free and began to head downstream. Exhaustion overwhelmed me and I couldn’t stop from being swept into another, smaller tree root ball. As I floundered and took in a mouthful of water, I felt an arm grab my bicep and pull.
One of the two Good Samaritans had dragged me out of the current. I scrambled onto the sandy shore and hit my knees, shivering from the fear, the cold and the fatigue.
The two men began trying to break the boat free. The motor had been lodged into the tree, anchoring it to the snag. The roots loosened– the men were trying to avoid being pinned underwater by the boat, too. The current and the pushing finally dislodged the stricken boat, sending it downstream. One of the guys grabbed the same chain that had wrapped around my ankle (which is still sore and swollen). I took it from him and began to wrestle with the boat. Jim and the other men joined me as we played a desperate game of tug-of-war.
That’s when two more guardian angels arrived on the scene.
Sonny and Bud, friends of Jim (and now my friends), had been fishing upstream and came cruising by. To quote Bud, “We came by and I saw the boat, but I had no idea it was you.” They stopped to help and joined us as we wrestled the boat on the other side the sandbar. It took five of us, but we managed to break the suction and flip it over. And that’s when we began to bail the water out. Sonny had a can in his boat. I used the motor cover from Jim’s boat. Bud grabbed the motor cover off of Sonny’s boat. The a water-logged Phoenix, stricken boat rose again.
While the two guys knew how to get the water out of the engine, they lacked the tools to do so. So Sonny took my son and I back to the truck (good thing I saved the keys) so we could get Jim’s toolbox into the boat.
My son and I stayed behind to dry out and warm up. Sonny went back to the sandbar with the tools.
They had managed to get the motor running again briefly, but the gas was corrupted with water. The engine stalled. Two hours later, Sonny returned to the boat drop, pulling Jim and Bud.
All and all, we had lost a few things (my son’s hat and a borrowed jacket, mats in the boat, straps for the boat trailer) but all and all, the whole day turned out to become a giant miracle. Angels looked over us every step of the way.
Since the motor was dead, we had to winch the salvaged boat onto the drive-on trailer by hand. Once we pulled the boat out of the water, it was over. And we were safe.
I think Jim and I replayed the events over and over that evening. Jim was very calm during the crisis. I was thankful he and I were able to keep my son out of harm’s way (my son was calm, too). A freakish accident had marred a fantastic morning of fishing. But we kept thinking of all the scenarios of how things could have gone so tragically wrong. That night, I apologized to my son. He held both hands by his head and then ran them down his body to his toes. And then he looked me in the eyes said something that shows why the boy is nothing short of brilliant: “Dad. It’s OK. I’m here.”
He’s here. Thanks to luck and quick action, he’s here. Thanks to two guardian angel’s protection, he’s here. I’m here. Jim’s here. It took a nine-year-old’s wisdom to remind me of that. It’s not what might have happened; it’s what happened. And we were blessed nearly every step of the way.
I can tell you this: When we are near water, my family will wear their life jackets. I owe two men for my life. And I can tell you this much, my son and I got a hell of a story to tell.
He wrote this poem about his day:
Today we went out of town,
On the River our ship went down,
Two men saved our lives,
They helped gather our supplies,
There was a man named Sonny
And he was very funny.
And when it ended,
I love the time we spended.
As you can see, he sees it as an adventure. And we both learned a very valuable lesson: What doesn’t kill you gives you a story to tell.
