| Initial Report: | Kayaker readied for final journey
by Jordan Schrader, JSCHRADE@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
published January 11, 2007 12:15 am
ASHEVILLE - Paul McKinney won't survive the kayak accident that pinned him under the rushing waters of the Rocky Broad River, family and friends say.
The Mars Hill husband and father of a 3-year-old son left Mission Hospitals
and on Wednesday was at CarePartners Hospice and Palliative Care. "Currently, we are taking all measures possible to support and comfort him until he is ready for his next journey," his wife wrote in a message board
on the Web site BoaterTalk, drawing sorrowful responses from dozens of
paddlers.
Boaters took quick action to rescue McKinney on Jan. 1 when his kayak tipped and wedged between two boulders on a rapid near Chimney Rock, emergency responders said.
The rapid's name of Walker Falls may have stuck because most travelers
choose to portage it, wary of the most dangerous part of the lower Rocky
Broad, said Will Hanna, a former American Whitewater Streamkeeper for the
river. But McKinney, 33, had an adventurous streak to match his fiery red hair,
said Tom McNinch, who came from Washington to be with his friend in his last
moments.
He "couldn't sit still. I'd come over and want to watch football, and he'd
say, 'No, we're going on a hike,'" McNinch said. McKinney darted from one job or hobby to another, with stints as an emergency veterinarian and glass blower. He did things on the spur of the moment, like invite McNinch on a monthlong trip to the West Coast and Las Vegas. "He might have had $200 in his pocket, but he said, 'We'll go until that runs out,'" his friend said.
McKinney and his wife, Barbie, married in a Las Vegas chapel, he said. They
later moved to Western North Carolina. Their 10th wedding anniversary is in March, his wife wrote online. She declined to be interviewed.
On New Year's Day, McKinney's two companions were prepared for trouble with rescue vests and ropes, according to a man who aided them in the rescue and described it in an online post. One lowered the other down on a rope to where only a foot of the kayak's stern poked out of the water, Charles Parrish wrote. They managed to work the boat free and then, with Parrish's help, wrestle it to shore. When emergency responders arrived, Chimney Rock Fire Chief Buck Meliski said, McKinney's friends had performed CPR but with no luck in restarting his breathing. He had stayed underwater for as long as 15 minutes by Meliski's estimate andperhaps half that long by the rescuer's account. It was too long.
Contact Jordan Schrader via e-mail at jchrade@gannett.com |
