Bernie's Hole had been recently re-exposed via the collapse of the Mad River Run feature six months prior, and until this day our Tuesday night group had regularly run it straight and played with and surfed it. I am recounting what I was told because I was absent this week, but Jim was sucked into the hole and window-shaded, and hit his face on a piece of exposed sharp metal on the pipe. This sharp metal was not previously known to exist. After getting away from it (I do not recall if he swam or not), he and fellow paddlers discovered a cut underneath his eye that was bleeding. Jim took out right there at the parking lot and sought medical attention, which resulted in stitches. Had the metal been an inch further to one side, he could have lost an eye.
Since this incident, Jim now wears a full-face helmet (and this was part of what prompted me to switch to full-face myself), and the Tuesday night group no longer runs or surfs the hole, going around on far river right instead.
