Accident Database

Report ID# 482

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  • Flush Drowning
  • Impact/Trauma
  • Asthma Attack
  • Other
  • Poor Group / Scene Management

Accident Description

On January 12, 1999 Steve Stone ran a big drop on ’s Rio Hollin without scouting and found himself in a huge hole. He flipped and washed out upside down, was unable to roll, and despite strong efforts on the part of his group, drowned.

DESCRIPTION: The 50 mile stretch of ’s Rio Hollin from the confluence of the Rio Hollin Grande and the Rio Hollin Chico to a bridge near the towns of San Pablo de Ushpayacu, San Jose , and Nuevo Santo Domingo is normally paddled in two days, camping overnight. It is mostly Class IV with a few hard Class V/V+ rapids. During our trip water levels were quite high. It rained hard, and the river was in the trees. The level dropped nearly a meter overnight, but the river was still pushy the next day. Air and water temperatures were in the 70’s. 

Our group was made up of seven American kayakers.  Five of us were in a group that traveled to from California and Oregon to boat together. We met the two other paddlers when we arrived. One was a guide for a local outfitter who was kayaking on his days off. The other, Steve Stone, was traveling by himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stone had planned to boat with whomever he could find. We invited him to join us on the Rio Misahualli. Although a very skilled boater, his boating style was unsettling. He often paddled ahead of us and was out of sight for long periods. At Cassanova Falls (a V+ that is not normally run), we portaged our boats halfway down the rapid and then sat down for lunch. Stone left his boat upstream and came down to scout. He said that he thought the rapid was runnable down the right side and then disappeared upstream without telling us what his plans were. He ran the right side, a series of three or four steep, congested drops. He did fine until the base of the second to last drop where he back-endered and flipped. He rolled up and managed to catch an eddy just before the final drop. He portaged this drop, but expressed regret after seeing the final drop from below. Steve also boated with our group on the Upper Misahualli . He was the first to launch and did not wait above a difficult rapid just below the put in. We caught up with him shortly, then arrived at a rapid that was blocked by strainers. All the paddlers except Stone got out to scout, then portaged the rapid. We signaled Stone that he should portage the rapid, but he decided to run the left channel without scouting. He ran it upright, but not cleanly. Then he paddled off down river, and we did not see him until lunch. For the rest of the day Steve was rarely in sight.

We planned to run the Rio Hollin on the 12th and 13th , but did not invite Stone. We were pretty uncomfortable boating with him, despite his strong skills and likeable personality, because of his independent style and questionable judgment. He seemed to have no concern for the rest of the group and did not want us to worry about him either! The rest of us were into teamwork and looking out for each other. But Stone was staying in the same hotel as we were so he heard about our trip. He assumed that since he had boated with us those two previous times he was invited. If we had been in the , perhaps we would have refused. But he was a fellow American down in with no one else to boat with, and that made it tough to refuse him.

The seven of us put on the Hollin around noon on January 12th. One of us gave a short speech about how we needed to work together and stay within sight of each other, ostensibly to the whole group, but really aimed at Stone. One member of our group had previously run the Hollin; he said the water was significantly higher than it had been when he had made the run the previous year. Most of the day was uneventful, and Steve stayed with the group. It rained, and the flow increased rapidly during the day.

At around 5:15 p.m., with Stone in the lead, we approached a drop with a serious looking horizon line. One of our group saw Stone drift sideways almost to the lip of the drop before he pointed his boat downstream and took a few strokes before dropping out of sight. Patrick approached the drop, assuming that he’d be able to see the whole rapid at some point. As he drew even with the final eddy before the drop, he still could not see the bottom! He eddied out and worked his way along the bank to scout. Two others followed close behind. Meanwhile the rest of us eddied out a bit further upstream. When the first three boaters got to where he could see the drop, they saw that it was a nearly vertical eight-foot drop into a huge hole. Stone was still in his boat getting badly worked. After 30-45 seconds he flushed out. We thought we saw him attempt a hand roll as he drifted out of sight around the corner upside down. We quickly portaged a couple of boats around the drop so we could give chase, but this took time, as the terrain was difficult. About three minutes later , two of us took off paddling after Stone while the others portaged. Below the river was pushy, non-technical Class III/IV with big waves, holes, and extremely fast water. Ten minutes after starting the chase they caught sight of Stone’s kayak, floating upside down, some distance downstream. As they approached, the boat rolled slightly in a wave, revealing that Steve was still inside.

Immediately below here we encountered a significant rapid with a tree across part of the left side. Stone missed the tree, and then as his boat bumped a rock gently, both he and his video camera came out of his boat. The boat and video camera were allowed to continue downstream as we towed Stone to shore on river left. One of us grabbed onto some bushes and held himself and Steve in place while another dropped into a micro-eddy a short distance downstream. He got out of his boat, and caught Stone and his rescuer as they floated by and pulled them into shore.

Stone’s airway was clear, but he had no breathing or pulse. His eyes were open and his pupils dilated. We began CPR at 5:35 p.m., roughly 15 minutes after Steve went over the drop. The others arrived 10 minutes later and CPR duties were rotated until 6:20 p.m.. After a total of 45 minutes of CPR, we stopped. There were never any signs of life. Since it was now dark we carried Steve’s body above the high water mark and hacked places out of the jungle for us to sleep. While moving his gear next to his body, we noticed that his helmet had taken a serious impact near his right ear. We ate dinner and passed a long, sleepless night.

The next day we wrapped Stone’s body in space blankets and marked the spot as best we could before paddling out. We found his boat and video camera and carried out as much of his gear as possible. We contacted the Ecuadorian Air Force base outside of Tena that afternoon. They were incredibly helpful. They flew one helicopter mission that evening trying to locate the body, but could not find him before dark. The next morning they located and removed Steve’s body. An autopsy done at a local hospital listed the cause of death as head trauma and drowning. Upon flipping in the hole he probably hit his head and was knocked unconscious. What we thought were hand roll attempts were probably just his boat and body rocking in the waves.

SOURCE: Written by: Patrick Kruse, John Stephan, Maury Lawrence, Keith Richards-Dinger, and John Jerger.

ANALYSIS: (Walbridge) Safety on isolated rivers depends on caution and teamwork among participants. It is clear that Stone chose not to do this. In particular, he made it a practice to run difficult rapids without scouting. This turns river running into a game of aquatic Russian Roulette, and sooner or later your luck will run out.

 

Keith Richards-Dinger and his group forwarded a report on the death of Steve Stone on the Rio Hollin in Ecuador. Stone, a Tennessee kayaker, was traveling independently when he met a group of five Californians and one local guide. In the days leading up to the Rio Hollin trip the group found Stone to be an excellent boater, but noted that he had a tendency to run ahead of the group and often attempted big rapids without scouting or backup. Running blind drops is always a dangerous game and in this case it proved to be a fatal error. The Rio Hollin, a two-day trip, was running extremely high from recent rains. Late on the first day, January12th, Stone ran first over a big horizon line. When the group realized that the rapid was blind they pulled over in time to see Stone caught in a large, steep entry hole at the base of an 8' drop. After a very rough ride and several rolls he flipped, washed out, and disappeared around a bend upside down.

Two members of the group portaged the drop and gave chase; the others following closely behind. Because of the rough terrain and the fast, pushy Class III-IV water below it took over 15 minutes to catch up with Stone's kayak. As they approached, the kayak rolled slightly in a wave, showing that Stone was still inside, before hitting a rock and dumping Stone out. The group got him to shore and began CPR, which they continued for 45 minutes without success. During this time they noticed Stone's helmet, a low profile model, had taken a very serious hit to the temple. The group camped there and, after marking the spot with space blankets, paddled out the next day. They notified authorities at an Air Force base late that afternoon. The body was picked up by helicopter the following morning.

The following write up is the joint effort of five of the party (all surviving members except Jeremy). Death of Steve Stone on the Rio Hollin (Ecuador) on Jan. 12th, 1998 Run: Rio Hollin from the confluence of the Rio Hollin Grande and the Rio Hollin Chico (~35 km north of Tena) to the bridge near the towns of San Pablo de Ushpayacu, San Jose, and Nuevo Santo Domingo (~4 km above the confluence with the Rio Misahualli). Total distance is about 50 km, normally done in two days.

Difficulty: Mostly class IV with a few V/V+ rapids Water Level: At time of accident seemed quite high - in the trees, had been raining very hard for much of the day, water level dropped nearly a meter over the following night and still seemed pushy the next day. Wild guess at flow is 3,500 cfs.

Weather: Rainy/raining. Temp in the low to mid 70's. Water temp also around 70.

Group: Seven kayakers, all from USA. Five of us had come down to Ecuador from California and Oregon to boat together: Patrick Kruse, John Stephan, Maury Lawrence, John Jerger, and Keith Richards-Dinger. The other two were unknown to us until we arrived in Tena. Jeremy Thomas had been in Ecuador for a few months working as a raft guide for Rios Ecuador out of Tena and kayaking on his days off. Steve Stone had come down from Tennessee by himself planning to boat with whomever he could find (though he hoped to meet a friend of his, Matt Terry, who was working as a raft guide for Rios Ecuador in Tena. Matt did not know that Steve was coming down and at the time of his (Steve's) arrival in Tena, Matt was kayaking on the Grand Canyon of the Rio Quijos for several days). Boats: Most of us were in playboats of one kind or another which made it a bit tight to fit overnight gear, but it worked ok since one doesn't need much warm gear in the jungle. Steve: Wavesport Stubby, Jeremy: New Wave Sleek, Patrick: Wavesport Kinetic, John S.: Dagger RPM, John J.: Wavesport Godzilla, Keith: Perception SS, Maury: Wavesport Laser. Narrative: Steve arrived in Tena the same evening (Jan. 8th) as Patrick and Keith (John J., John S., and Maury (and of course Jeremy) were already in Tena). Maury's impressions of Steve: Very independent. Would not accept help from anyone. We happened to greet him at the bus in Tena, expecting Keith and Patrick to arrive and offered to assist him with his gear to his hotel. He refused, even though he was obviously struggling with his boat, backpack, guitar, and carry on bag.

Patrick and Keith arrived on a later bus. Since he had no one to boat with, we invited him to come with us on the Rio Misahualli on the 9th. It quickly became clear that he was a very skilled boater but had a very different boating style from ours. He would often paddle ahead of us and be out of sight for long periods of time. At Cassanova Falls (a V+ that is not normally run), we portaged our boats about halfway down the rapid and then sat down for lunch. Steve left his boat upstream and came down to scout. He said that he thought it was runnable down the right side and then disappeared upstream without telling us for sure whether he was going up to portage his boat or to run the rapid, or asking us to be prepared with throwropes, etc. He ran down the right side, a series of 3 or 4 congested drops with each one bigger than the last. He did fine until the base of the second to last drop where he got a backender that flipped him completely over. He managed to roll up and paddle into an eddy just before the final drop. He then portaged the final drop but expressed regret at having done so after seeing the final drop from below (despite a very ugly undercut sieve at the bottom of the final drop). He didn't seem concerned that he had been upside down in the middle of a V+ rapid. He indicated a desire to run the complete rapid the next time he ran the river. He did not boat with us on the 10th as he was moving from one hotel to another and trying to change money and generally getting organized. Steve boated with the group again on the 11th on the upper Misahualli. Steve was the first to put on and did not wait to see how the rest of the group was faring with the first difficult rapid at the put in. We caught up with him shortly and soon came upon a rapid that was blocked by both natural and man-made strainers. All paddlers except Steve got out to scout and then portage the rapid. There was no good channel to run, and all of us signaled to Steve that he should portage the rapid as well. Maury, the least experienced boater of the group, signaled that the left channel was perhaps possible to run but congested with rocks below the drop. Steve decided to run that route (without scouting) and navigated it upright, though not cleanly. Then he took off down river, and we did not see him until lunch. The rest of the day continued without incident, although Steve was rarely in sight of the group. We planned to do a two day trip on the Rio Hollin on the 12th and 13th. We were all quite uncomfortable boating with Steve; despite his skills (and his being a nice guy and an excellent guitar player), we were not comfortable with his style of boating and judgment. Steve was an independent boater seemingly without concern for the rest of the group (and vice versa, did not seem to want us to be concerned about him). The rest of us were more used to teamwork and looking out for each other. While its not our place to tell anyone how they should boat, we do get to decide with whom we do or do not boat. Therefore we did not invite Steve to come with us on the Hollin. However, he was staying in the same hotel as us and so of course heard about our trip. He assumed that since he had boated with us those two previous times he was invited with us on this trip as well. If we had been in the US, perhaps we would have refused to boat with him. But him being a fellow US citizen down in Ecuador with no one else to boat with made it tough to say "no". So the seven of us put on the Hollin somewhere between 11 and 12 on the 12th. At Maury's request, Patrick gave a short speech about how we needed to work together and stay within sight of each other, etc. (ostensibly to the whole group, but really aimed at Steve). Patrick was the only one of us who had previously paddled the Hollin (once, one year earlier). At the put-in he said the water was significantly higher than it had been when he done the run the previous year. Most of the day went fairly uneventfully, and Steve stayed with the group. It rained quite a bit and the flow went up rapidly during the day, both from the addition of tributaries and the rain. The Hollin at this flow was perhaps a bit over Maury's head, so we kept a close watch on her, but she did fine. The first rapid of note is the "cave" rapid. Here the river has massively undercut the right wall of the canyon and large chunks of the right wall have fallen off and landed in middle and left side of the river (like I said, its massively undercut) to form a "cave". I would give the rapid through this "cave" a IV+, and its being in the cave makes it a bit more intimidating than it might otherwise be. Patrick, Steve, and Keith ran this rapid reasonably cleanly while the other four walked. Steve said that he was uncomfortable running this difficult a drop with his video camera on his lap. Apparently it was difficult to exit his boat with the camera in place. Therefore he asked John S. to carry his camera around the rapid. All of us except Steve portaged a class IV drop which had 2 of its 3 exit chutes blocked by logs. It was necessary to maneuver immediately after the main drop to make it to the one clean exit. Steve ran this drop (cleanly) while we were portaging and before we had a chance to set up safety. Everybody, even Steve, portaged Sumaco Falls, a V+/VI a bit farther down. Steve commented that at lower flows he would run this rapid. We ate lunch at Sumaco Falls and noted that the water had risen about one foot during our lunch. We had been doing a lot of playing and at around 4 in the afternoon decided to quit playing so that we could make better time and hopefully find a nice campsite for the night since we hadn't seen any yet. Somewhere around 5:15, Steve was in the lead, followed by Patrick. We approached a drop with a serious looking horizon line. Patrick saw Steve look at the drop while drifting sideways almost to the lip of the drop, then just before going over, point his boat downstream and take a few strokes before dropping out of sight. Patrick approached the drop assuming that he'd be able to see the whole rapid at some point, since why else would Steve have run it without getting out to scout from the shore? As he drew even with the final eddy before the drop, he still could not see the bottom of the drop. So he eddied out on river right and got out of his boat and worked his way along the bank (a somewhat slippery inclined slab of rock) to scout it. Maury and John S. followed close behind. Patrick told them that he had seen Steve go over the drop but had not seen him come out below the drop. Meanwhile the rest of us eddied out a bit further upstream. When Patrick got to where he could see the drop, he saw that it was a not quite vertical 8 ft. drop into an unpunchable hole. And Steve was still in his boat getting worked in the hole. As Patrick watched, Steve finally flushed out of the hole. At this point an estimated 30-45 seconds had passed since Steve had gone over the drop (the time by which Steve was leading Patrick plus the time it took Patrick to get out of his boat and work his way down the bank plus a few more seconds while Patrick watched). Patrick thought he saw Steve attempt a hand roll as he drifted out of sight around the corner upside down. Patrick shouted at us to get a couple of boats portaged around the drop so we could chase Steve down. Maury and John S. worked Patrick's boat around while Keith carried his. It took some time as the terrain was somewhat tricky. An estimated 2-3 minutes after Steve paddled over the drop, Patrick and Keith took off paddling after Steve, while the other 4 were to portage their boats and follow after. Below the drop, at that water level, the river was pushy, nontechnical class III/IV with big waves and holes and extremely fast water. Patrick and Keith paddled as fast as they could while scanning the banks and river for Steve and/or his boat. An estimated 8-10 minutes after starting the chase they finally caught sight of Steve's boat upside down in the distance downstream. It took a couple more minutes to catch the boat. As they approached the boat, it rolled slightly in a wave, and they saw that Steve was still in the boat. Immediately below was a significant rapid with a tree across part of the left side. They couldn't get him out before this rapid. He floated under the tree with no problem, and then as his boat bumped a rock gently, he and his video camera came out of his boat. The boat and video camera were allowed to continue downstream while Patrick towed Steve to shore on river left. Because of the water level the eddies were small and few and far between. Patrick grabbed onto some bushes and held himself and Steve in place while Keith dropped into a micro-eddy ~5 m downstream and got out of his boat. Patrick then drifted down and Keith caught his bow and pendulumed Patrick and Steve into shore. Steve's airways were clear, but he had no signs of breathing, no pulse, and his eyes were open with the pupils dilated. They arranged their boats to make a reasonably flat and level working surface on the upturned bottom of Patrick's boat, removed Steve's helmet and lifevest, partially removed his sprayskirt, and began CPR at 5:35. This is an estimated 15 minutes after Steve went over the drop. The other 4 arrived 10 minutes later and the CPR duties were rotated until 6:20 (a total of 45 minutes of CPR), at which point we stopped. There were never any signs of life. As it was now dark we carried Steve's body above the high water mark and hacked places out of the jungle for ourselves to sleep. While moving his gear up to next to his body, we noticed that his helmet (a low profile, carbon-fibre, Orosi) had signs of a very serious impact just forward of and above his right ear. We had dinner and then passed a long, mostly sleepless night. The next day we wrapped his body in space blankets and marked the spot as best we could with other space blankets. We then paddled out to our planned takeout (there is no place get off the river earlier). We found his boat and video camera and carried his camera and as much of his gear as possible out but had to leave the boat. We got to the Ecuadorian Air Force base outside of Tena at about 5pm. They were incredibly helpful. They flew one helicopter mission that evening with Patrick to try to locate the body but didn't have enough time before dark. The next morning John Stephan and John Jerger went up with them and located the body. They were then dropped off and the Air Force extracted the body. An autopsy was done at the hospital in Tena. Maury talked to the doctors there, and it was her understanding that the cause of death was head trauma. However, Steve's mother received a written copy of the official autopsy report and thought it said that drowning was the cause of death. In any case, it seems likely that he was at least knocked unconscious instantly upon flipping in the hole and striking his head and that what Patrick thought were hand roll attempts were just the boat and body rocking in the waves.The following write up, posted to RPB, is the joint effort of five of the party (all surviving members except Jeremy).

 

Death of Steve Stone on the Rio Hollin (Ecuador) on Jan. 12th, 1998

Run: Rio Hollin from the confluence of the Rio Hollin Grande and the Rio Hollin Chico (~35 km north of Tena) to the bridge near the towns of San Pablo de Ushpayacu, San Jose, and Nuevo Santo Domingo (~4 km above the confluence with the Rio Misahualli). Total distance is about 50 km, normally done in two days.

Difficulty: Mostly class IV with a few V/V+ rapids Water Level: At time of accident seemed quite high - in the trees, had been raining very hard for much of the day, water level dropped nearly a meter over the following night and still seemed pushy the next day. Wild guess at flow is 3,500 cfs.

Weather: Rainy/raining. Temp in the low to mid 70's. Water temp also around 70.

Group: Seven kayakers, all from USA. Five of us had come down to Ecuador from California and Oregon to boat together: Patrick Kruse, John Stephan, Maury Lawrence, John Jerger, and Keith Richards-Dinger. The other two were unknown to us until we arrived in Tena. Jeremy Thomas had been in Ecuador for a few months working as a raft guide for Rios Ecuador out of Tena and kayaking on his days off. Steve Stone had come down from Tennessee by himself planning to boat with whomever he could find (though he hoped to meet a friend of his, Matt Terry, who was working as a raft guide for Rios Ecuador in Tena. Matt did not know that Steve was coming down and at the time of his (Steve's) arrival in Tena, Matt was kayaking on the Grand Canyon of the Rio Quijos for several days).

Boats: Most of us were in playboats of one kind or another which made it a bit tight to fit overnight gear, but it worked ok since one doesn't need much warm gear in the jungle. Steve: Wavesport Stubby, Jeremy: New Wave Sleek, Patrick: Wavesport Kinetic, John S.: Dagger RPM, John J.: Wavesport Godzilla, Keith: Perception SS, Maury: Wavesport Laser.

Narrative: Steve arrived in Tena the same evening (Jan. 8th) as Patrick and Keith (John J., John S., and Maury (and of course Jeremy) were already in Tena). Maury's impressions of Steve: Very independent. Would not accept help from anyone. We happened to greet him at the bus in Tena, expecting Keith and Patrick to arrive and offered to assist him with his gear to his hotel. He refused, even though he was obviously struggling with his boat, backpack, guitar, and carry on bag. Patrick and Keith arrived on a later bus.

Since he had no one to boat with, we invited him to come with us on the Rio Misahualli on the 9th. It quickly became clear that he was a very skilled boater but had a very different boating style from ours. He would often paddle ahead of us and be out of sight for long periods of time. At Cassanova Falls (a V+ that is not normally run), we portaged our boats about halfway down the rapid and then sat down for lunch. Steve left his boat upstream and came down to scout. He said that he thought it was runnable down the right side and then disappeared upstream without telling us for sure whether he was going up to portage his boat or to run the rapid, or asking us to be prepared with throwropes, etc. He ran down the right side, a series of 3 or 4 congested drops with each one bigger than the last. He did fine until the base of the second to last drop where he got a backender that flipped him completely over. He managed to roll up and paddle into an eddy just before the final drop. He then portaged the final drop but expressed regret at having done so after seeing the final drop from below (despite a very ugly undercut sieve at the bottom of the final drop). He didn't seem concerned that he had been upside down in the middle of a V+ rapid. He indicated a desire to run the complete rapid the next time he ran the river.

He did not boat with us on the 10th as he was moving from one hotel to another and trying to change money and generally getting organized. Steve boated with the group again on the 11th on the upper Misahualli. Steve was the first to put on and did not wait to see how the rest of the group was faring with the first difficult rapid at the put in. We caught up with him shortly and soon came upon a rapid that was blocked by both natural and man-made strainers. All paddlers except Steve got out to scout and then portage the rapid. There was no good channel to run, and all of us signaled to Steve that he should portage the rapid as well. Maury, the least experienced boater of the group, signaled that the left channel was perhaps possible to run but congested with rocks below the drop. Steve decided to run that route (without scouting) and navigated it upright, though not cleanly. Then he took off down river, and we did not see him until lunch. The rest of the day continued without incident, although Steve was rarely in sight of the group.

We planned to do a two day trip on the Rio Hollin on the 12th and 13th. We were all quite uncomfortable boating with Steve; despite his skills (and his being a nice guy and an excellent guitar player), we were not comfortable with his style of boating and judgment. Steve was an independent boater seemingly without concern for the rest of the group (and vice versa, did not seem to want us to be concerned about him). The rest of us were more used to teamwork and looking out for each other. While its not our place to tell anyone how they should boat, we do get to decide with whom we do or do not boat. Therefore we did not invite Steve to come with us on the Hollin. However, he was staying in the same hotel as us and so of course heard about our trip. He assumed that since he had boated with us those two previous times he was invited with us on this trip as well. If we had been in the US, perhaps we would have refused to boat with him. But him being a fellow US citizen down in Ecuador with no one else to boat with made it tough to say "no". So the seven of us put on the Hollin somewhere between 11 and 12 on the 12th. At Maury's request, Patrick gave a short speech about how we needed to work together and stay within sight of each other, etc. (ostensibly to the whole group, but really aimed at Steve). Patrick was the only one of us who had previously paddled the Hollin (once, one year earlier).

At the put-in he said the water was significantly higher than it had been when he done the run the previous year. Most of the day went fairly uneventfully, and Steve stayed with the group. It rained quite a bit and the flow went up rapidly during the day, both from the addition of tributaries and the rain. The Hollin at this flow was perhaps a bit over Maury's head, so we kept a close watch on her, but she did fine. The first rapid of note is the "cave" rapid. Here the river has massively undercut the right wall of the canyon and large chunks of the right wall have fallen off and landed in middle and left side of the river (like I said, its massively undercut) to form a "cave". I would give the rapid through this "cave" a IV+, and its being in the cave makes it a bit more intimidating than it might otherwise be. Patrick, Steve, and Keith ran this rapid reasonably cleanly while the other four walked. Steve said that he was uncomfortable running this difficult a drop with his video camera on his lap. Apparently it was difficult to exit his boat with the camera in place. Therefore he asked John S. to carry his camera around the rapid. All of us except Steve portaged a class IV drop which had 2 of its 3 exit chutes blocked by logs. It was necessary to maneuver immediately after the main drop to make it to the one clean exit. Steve ran this drop (cleanly) while we were portaging and before we had a chance to set up safety. Everybody, even Steve, portaged Sumaco Falls, a V+/VI a bit farther down. Steve commented that at lower flows he would run this rapid. We ate lunch at Sumaco Falls and noted that the water had risen about one foot during our lunch. We had been doing a lot of playing and at around 4 in the afternoon decided to quit playing so that we could make better time and hopefully find a nice campsite for the night since we hadn't seen any yet.

Somewhere around 5:15, Steve was in the lead, followed by Patrick. We approached a drop with a serious looking horizon line. Patrick saw Steve look at the drop while drifting sideways almost to the lip of the drop, then just before going over, point his boat downstream and take a few strokes before dropping out of sight. Patrick approached the drop assuming that he'd be able to see the whole rapid at some point, since why else would Steve have run it without getting out to scout from the shore? As he drew even with the final eddy before the drop, he still could not see the bottom of the drop. So he eddied out on river right and got out of his boat and worked his way along the bank (a somewhat slippery inclined slab of rock) to scout it. Maury and John S. followed close behind. Patrick told them that he had seen Steve go over the drop but had not seen him come out below the drop. Meanwhile the rest of us eddied out a bit further upstream.

When Patrick got to where he could see the drop, he saw that it was a not quite vertical 8 ft. drop into an unpunchable hole. And Steve was still in his boat getting worked in the hole. As Patrick watched, Steve finally flushed out of the hole. At this point an estimated 30-45 seconds had passed since Steve had gone over the drop (the time by which Steve was leading Patrick plus the time it took Patrick to get out of his boat and work his way down the bank plus a few more seconds while Patrick watched). Patrick thought he saw Steve attempt a hand roll as he drifted out of sight around the corner upside down. Patrick shouted at us to get a couple of boats portaged around the drop so we could chase Steve down. Maury and John S. worked Patrick's boat around while Keith carried his. It took some time as the terrain was somewhat tricky.

An estimated 2-3 minutes after Steve paddled over the drop, Patrick and Keith took off paddling after Steve, while the other 4 were to portage their boats and follow after. Below the drop, at that water level, the river was pushy, nontechnical class III/IV with big waves and holes and extremely fast water. Patrick and Keith paddled as fast as they could while scanning the banks and river for Steve and/or his boat. An estimated 8-10 minutes after starting the chase they finally caught sight of Steve's boat upside down in the distance downstream. It took a couple more minutes to catch the boat. As they approached the boat, it rolled slightly in a wave, and they saw that Steve was still in the boat. Immediately below was a significant rapid with a tree across part of the left side. They couldn't get him out before this rapid. He floated under the tree with no problem, and then as his boat bumped a rock gently, he and his video camera came out of his boat. The boat and video camera were allowed to continue downstream while Patrick towed Steve to shore on river left. Because of the water level the eddies were small and few and far between. Patrick grabbed onto some bushes and held himself and Steve in place while Keith dropped into a micro-eddy ~5 m downstream and got out of his boat. Patrick then drifted down and Keith caught his bow and pendulumed Patrick and Steve into shore. Steve's airways were clear, but he had no signs of breathing, no pulse, and his eyes were open with the pupils dilated. They arranged their boats to make a reasonably flat and level working surface on the upturned bottom of Patrick's boat, removed Steve's helmet and lifevest, partially removed his sprayskirt, and began CPR at 5:35. This is an estimated 15 minutes after Steve went over the drop. The other 4 arrived 10 minutes later and the CPR duties were rotated until 6:20 (a total of 45 minutes of CPR), at which point we stopped.

There were never any signs of life. As it was now dark we carried Steve's body above the high water mark and hacked places out of the jungle for ourselves to sleep. While moving his gear up to next to his body, we noticed that his helmet (a low profile, carbon-fibre, Orosi) had signs of a very serious impact just forward of and above his right ear. We had dinner and then passed a long, mostly sleepless night. The next day we wrapped his body in space blankets and marked the spot as best we could with other space blankets. We then paddled out to our planned takeout (there is no place get off the river earlier). We found his boat and video camera and carried his camera and as much of his gear as possible out but had to leave the boat. We got to the Ecuadorian Air Force base outside of Tena at about 5pm. They were incredibly helpful. They flew one helicopter mission that evening with Patrick to try to locate the body but didn't have enough time before dark. The next morning John Stephan and John Jerger went up with them and located the body. They were then dropped off and the Air Force extracted the body.

An autopsy was done at the hospital in Tena. Maury talked to the doctors there, and it was her understanding that the cause of death was head trauma. However, Steve's mother received a written copy of the official autopsy report and thought it said that drowning was the cause of death. In any case, it seems likely that he was at least knocked unconscious instantly upon flipping in the hole and striking his head and that what Patrick thought were hand roll attempts were just the boat and body rocking in the waves.

 

 

 

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