Today we saved a life. Two canoes with 3 people in each flipped at Skinners. With one canoe only 2 people came out. So Tom Wilkins and I went to check the canoe out and then two legs quickly appeared from under the gunnel. An old maybe 80 year old man was trapped underneath. It took both Tom and I to turn the canoe over and the guy came up sputtering water out of his mouth. He spoke no English and continually tried to force himself into our boats. So if we werent there he would have perished in the next minute or so.
The second canoe flipped upstream of the second and the mans wife was standing in the middle of the river with a couple of younger people from their trip. She was older and extremely overweight. We ended up borrowing a small raft and paddling out to her and three of us eventually got her to roll into the raft. We brought her to shore.
Tom wanted me to mention that he saved someone who had started to drown the day before at Skinners. Tom happened to look in the direction where the man started to slip under, and he went to rescue him.
The rescue today occured after 3 members of the patrol had left to go to Narrowsburg at 2:00.
I still have adrenaline 4 hours later from the rescue.
The interns at the kiosk couldnt have been more helpful. They helped us carry the boats to the put in and later on the takeout.
