Accident Database: Accident #2455
| River: | Cheoah |
| Section: | Santeetlah Dam to Calderwood Lake Boat Launch |
| Location: | Beoe God's Dam |
| Gauge: | |
| Water Level: | Medium |
| Difficulty: | IV |
| Accident Code(s): | Entrapment |
| Age: | 0 |
| Experienced/Inexperienced: | Experienced |
| Years Paddling: | >10 |
| Private/Commercial: | Commercial |
| Boat Type: | Kayak - Unknown |
| Boat Manufacturer: | |
| Boat Model: | |
| Number of Occupants: | 1 |
| Number in Group: | 6 |
| Number of Victims: | 0 |
| Other Victim Names: | |
| Hazard Codes: | Natural Strainer or Sieve |
| Initial Report: | Sunday, August 19, 2007Reflections on the Cheoah Incident
Here are the most common points that I came across: 1. What was the other instructor and photographer doing and why could they not help? 2. Where was my whistle and why was it not used to signal? 3. Why was the time not taken to setup a shore based stabilization line? 4. Why was skirt/boat not cut to help free the paddler? A very important thing to keep in mind is the acute focus that one experiences in a situation like this. When the decision was made to jump out of my boat and put my body within reach of a very strong 200-pound man in distress, I knew I was breaking some very serious rules and it made me very nervous. My focus at that point was on making sure he was effectively breathing and that I would not be carried down into a compromised position. The reasons why some things were not preformed during this rescue are beyond my reasoning, but the reality is that it is very hard to do a textbook job in very non-textbook situation. Second instructor / Photographer: The other student had gone on downstream so my other instructor had gone down to be sure that he was eddied out. After attaining back up some of the rapid I then gave them the signal to stay in the water in case we went mobile. I was not sure at that point what exactly was happening, and I worried that he was physically injured and would need assistance getting to shore. The photographer only witnessed the boat recovery and was wearing only street clothing thus eliminating them from any part of the rescue. Whistle: The reality of using a whistle is this…As soon as it is used; the level of anxiety felt throughout the group is dramatically increased and calm decision making can be compromised. A great comparison is when an EMT puts on a pair of gloves in front of a patient that needs to be kept calm. Suddenly the patient becomes nervous and may do the exact opposite, worsening the situation. When I had that man in my arms, the last thing I wanted to do was blow my whistle in his ear and have him freak out on me! There would however been a point when that would have been necessary had plan A not worked. The whistle was there on my shoulder, but I decided not to use it. Shore based assistance: I think in this case anyone on river left would have provided the most assistance by swimming out to my position and helping me hands on. Doing this would have been risky, but sometimes you just have to make it happen. It was impossible to put a rope across the river due to the high traffic day and the impossibility of stopping upstream traffic in any reasonable about of time. The river left shore I think was also a deterrent from eddying out and walking back upstream. Some serious commitment to poison ivy bushwhacking would have been required. The few people, who did eddy out, did so on river right making them useless in the rescue. It was a tuff situation for the passing boaters, they would have had to make this commitment based on what they saw as they passed by the pinned boater. Skirt/boat not cut: Again, this concept of cutting the skirt free is great when you are sitting in a classroom studying river rescue but in this situation would have been a very poor decision. Not only was the cockpit not visible, it was two feet under in the backwash of a churning hole. Cutting at least part of this paddlers leg, I feel, would have been inevitable in these circumstances. There are many reasons to carry a river knife but this was not one of them. Looking back on this I feel that the one thing that should have been done better, was verbal communication between myself and the other passing paddlers. Hindsight is always 20/20 but if I take only one thing away from this, better verbal communication would be it. So if you see anyone asking for help out there, be sure and give’em a hand! Thanks again to all who took the time to respond to the incident write-up. |
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| Link: | |
| Report Status: | On Going |
