Thinking back on past years of North branch trips, there's alot of beginners who run this section and it's not unusual to see swimmers at Robins nest. Sometimes groups would get split up in the commotion but were always reunited in a short time so I tried to reassure the boy that his dad was probably ok and had mabye walked upstream or downstream along the bank. I told him to get out of his boat and walk up into the woods a little and start yelling for his dad, and that if we saw him downstream we would tell the father that his son was upstream looking for him. So we paddled on, went through a few more rapids, (we were about 1.5 mi downstream of where we encountered the son last) and then we saw something the color red, bobbing/floating in the middle of the river about 1 mile downstream of us. I paddled as fast as I could to get down there and when I got to about 10ft away I realized what it was. It was a red pfd and I through the side of it I could see a head. His helmet was still on, eyes were closed, mouth was wide open and his color was lite blue/gray.
It was a very gruesome sight! The pfd had rose up and around his head and wasn't around his body anymore. The only parts of him above the water was his head and pfd. I yelled up to Heather to come down and help me get him to shore. I held on to his arm and to Heathers boat while she paddled us to the river left shore. We were around 3/4mi upstream of the takeout by this point. I pulled him up onto the bank, removed the pfd from his head and started cpr while Heather was trying to get service signal on the cell phone. (Signal is very spotty through that section of the Potomac.) The man didn't appear to be properly dressed for a cold water swim. He appeared to be in his 50's and was overweight. His kayak skirt was down around his legs. He was totally unresponsive. CPR didn't seem to be helping at all and after around 10 mins of it I stopped to check for pulse and any sign of life. No pulse detected on his neck or wrist. His body was VERY cold and stiffining. The color of his face was grayish/ashen and I then concluded the man was dead...and had most likely been dead for a bit before we found him. I laid his pfd across his face and said a prayer for him and his family.
We had gotten through to 911 emergency, they told us that the area was inaccessable and to get the body down to the takeout where rescuers would be waiting. We were in kayaks so we couldn't get him down there ourselves so we waited, hoping that a raft would come down soon and help us get him to takeout. We waited 20 mins and finally another kayaker came down. He said his name was "Zane". He told us there was a double duckie (2 person inflatable kayak) coming down a few mins behind him. We waited another 10 mins and they arrived, we flagged them over to us. I was glad they were able help us. I knew one of the paddlers in the duckie, her name is Rachel Beth Walters. We were able to put the mans body across the middle of the duckie, between the two paddlers in it.
The firemen/rescue crews met us just a little upstream of the normal takeout on river left. They took the man off in an ambulance heading to the hospital in Keyser and told us to meet Maryland Natural Resources Police at the normal takeout to give statements. When the son did finally paddle down to the takeout, he was told of what happened to his dad and he took it very hard as I would have too if it had been my father. A sad day on a beautiful and usually uneventful section of the North branch Potomac river.
Rhett Colwell
Update:
This is Scott Petersen the son of the man who passed away on the river I wanted to share the facts that I have so that everyone may know what occurred that day. My father came out of his boat after the second drop at Robins Nest, he was a very experienced boater but could not necessarily roll his boat anymore. The coroner believes my father had a heart attack which in-turn lead to drowning. He WAS properly outfitted. Richard, Jim, Patrick and Rae if you could please email me I would love to get together with yall to express my gratitude and appreciation for helping me on that day.