Creature Craft pinned in Nutcracker on the North Fork of the Payette. Person rescued had CPR, defibrilation, and life flight. Her name was Sara Bronson. She was 21 and did not survive.
Valley County Sheriff’s Office – Rafting Incident Highway 55
The Valley County Sheriff’s Office, along with multiple first responders, responded to a rafting incident near Mile Marker 92 on Highway 55. One individual was pulled from the water, and lifesaving measures were initiated by an off duty Boise Firefighter, a Valley County Sheriff’s Deputy arrived on scene and was able to use an AED until other emergency personnel arrived on scene. Due to the severity of the incident, Highway 55 was temporarily closed to allow Life Flight Network’s air ambulance to safely land and transport the patient to a higher level of medical care.
Chris Dawkins on FB: We were there. We were driving up to put in above Nutcracker and stopped when we saw the CC pinned on a river left rock below the Nut rock in nutcracker. Sadly, the near-fatality was absolutely avoidable. They were pinned/broached on a dry rock and literally could have stepped off the boat onto the rock. Instead, members of our group heard the oarsman instruct his 2 paddle assists to keep their seat belts on. The raft started to high side on the rock, front right passenger (woman) started to go under. Water was sheeting over her head, but she still had an air pocket. She was still belted in, and no one seriously attempted to free her until a few minutes after she’d been fully submerged. Members of our group were yelling at the 2 others to pull her seat belt. Another CC eddied out left, and one of its passengers got her seat belt off. He had not clipped anything to her though, so her body flushed downstream. The oarsman who ran left of the nut rock was definitely inexperienced and clearly lacked rescue skills. What I witnessed was him sitting in his seat with his seatbelt on during most of this. Very tragic event that was very preventable. Word from a member of the CC group was that the couple (the paddle assists) were inexperienced/beginners and had just come up that morning. Beginners on the top 5? I’ve always thought the seat belts on Creature Crafts were an accident waiting to happen. I’m not super familiar with them, but it’s always seemed like you could have someone submerged and unable to release. That’s just what happened yesterday.
Chris Dawkins via email: There were probably 10 of us on site who witnessed the accident and could add detail, especially before I arrived on scene.
It’s worth noting that I was the last of our group’s vehicles on site. By the time I got there, our group already had a rope from river right to the boat on river left. It was connected to the CC on the side near the rower. It was later moved to the front right side of the CC. My recollection is that the boat started to move, and the victim went underwater. At that time, we connected that throw rope to 2 pulleys (Z-drag), and we started pulling to get the boat and her free. I could be mistaken about the sequence of events (when she started to go under water relative to our rescue attempts). I can tell you that the boat was stuck hard, so I don’t think the 1:1 pulling on the rope moved the boat, but we almost certainly moved the boat with the z-drag, though not enough to get it off the rock. It still holds that during all this time, the 2 CC passengers did nothing to free the woman’s seat belt and that she was only freed when a passenger on another CC eddied out left and ran up the left bank to get her free.