Does Anyone Have An Update On The Kayaker Who Was Revived At The NOC On The Nantahala Yesterday? Witnessed from afar a kayaker getting churned and pinned under yesterday right near Silvermine Commercial Takeout 3 only to come afloat lifeless and facedown. Within a minute of his body floating down the river about 100 meters, he was grabbed by what looked like an instructor and then mounted on a semi flat rock for CPR to be performed. The guy was revived about five minutes later after intense CPR. Witnessing that has left me with a decent amount of PTSD.Despite the revival, I wanted to know if anyone with any familiarity was aware of the bloke's condition today.
NOC employee here, boater was knocked unconscious, pulled from river, and revived within 3 minutes by best friend. Was taken to hospital and last I heard yesterday was supposed to be released today. If you frequent any river, at least get CPR certified, it’s amazing what a couple rescue breaths and some compressions can do to reverse a drowning!
Yellow Robe Smith on Reddit: That part on the bottom right middle where the water is cascading over. You can kind of see a rock there in the middle of the falls between the breaker rocks on the left and island on the right, they were stuck there just to the right of that rock. They kept getting tumbled under and then they'd pop back up and then they got washer machined back under over and over. A good portion of me thinks he was in the spot he was for some type of training as their was a group of 4-6 of them in that spot or nearby that spot specifically. It almost looked like the instruction was positioned 20 yards down river intentionally and was giving guidance without the awareness from my angle that the gentleman was in fact in graver danger than those on the water could realize.
They were initially in their kayak and they were updside down in it for 15-20 seconds. Normally I see people pop back over, but they were very slow to get upright themselves. When they finally did, they bailed out of the kayak and pulled maybe the rip cord on their suit, but that didn't offer much relief as the force of the water pushed them back under in the same spot as they were when they were still in their kayak. They'd pop back up for about five seconds and they'd get washed all over again. Eventually, they didn't emerge and I called 911 thirty seconds before they got spit out lifeless. From my estimation, this all started around 12:17pm and at 12:20pm I made the emergency call. From about 12:21p, to 12:22pm they floated facedown. At 12:22pm, CPR started and by 12:26pm he was revived. He was floated to shore at 12:30pm in one of the big NOC yellow rafts and at 12:38pm, EMS arrived.
In my opinion, I really applaud many of the bystanders and staff of the NOC for the lifesaving efforts (CPR) because there wasn't going to be much that EMS would have been able to provide any differently.
