Less than 10 minutes after launching on the third and last day of a trip that started at State Bridge Tom Taylor suffered a heart attack resulting in his falling out of and flipping his loaded canoe in cold water just above a Class II+ rapid. I was closest to him, but could not reach him due to the speed of the current and having to navigate the rapid. I caught his canoe and guided it into an eddy on river right just yards from Colorado River Road and Tom washed into the eddy. I could not hold his boat and stay in the eddy, so I released his boat and heading for the bank so I could beach and then assist Tom. It took me a good 20-25 minutes to reach him due to having to bushwhack my way along a steep, unstable bank. I stopped at a house and asked them to call 911 while I went to assist Tom. By the time I got to him he was floating face down circling in the eddy. I pulled him to shore just as a local outfitter arrived carrying Tom's brother who was ahead of me and went a couple miles downriver before being able to get to shore. We performed CPR for about 25 minutes until EMS arrived and took over. They performed CPR and defibbed Tom for about 30 minutes before declaring him non-responsive. The official cause of death was listed as drowning, but his heart attack caused him to fall into the cold water.
We were taking out at Dotsero later that day. It was sunny and in the low 70's, and all major rapids were behind us already, so we were not wearing drysuits or wetsuits. I saw Tom just a minute or so before he fell into the river at which time he was slumping forward in his boat, so I assume he was already having the heart attack. The next time I could look back upriver his boat was upside down and he was in the river behind it. He caught it momentarily, and then it got away from him. I suspect he drowned because of exposure to the cold water while having the heart attack. The coroner's report did not mention the heart attack, and merely listed cause of death as drowning, but none of us got any water out of him during CPR. His heart attack happened either just above or below Red Dirt Bridge where Red Dirt Creek Road intersects Colorado River Road. The exact location where I pulled Tom from the river was N 39°47'48.56" / W 106°58'20.65", about 0.65 miles below where I last saw him upright in the boat.
Below is editorial comment only and is NOT for publication:
For the record, Tom was a highly experienced whitewater paddler. He and I paddled thousands of miles together on rivers in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Colorado. Idaho, Oregon and Washington since around 2000 in both hard and inflaltable canoes. We are both swiftwater rescue trained, and Tom was a former EMT/Firerman. I only learned of his heart condition after his death, but we had run that same river twice before and knew the run. I suspect that he overstressed himself while striking camp and packing his canoe just before we launched. We were very near Burns when the accident occurred about 0.7 miles below our put-in that day from our riverside campsite.
