Re:My drowning and other inconveniences (2017)
by quacked on Friday September 24, 2021 @11:05AM
(#28643440)
Terrifying stories like those are the norm in the outdoor recreation industry. Risk management is almost always nonexistent, and people coast on the principle of "if it didn't go wrong before, if probably won't go wrong now". They made an excellent choice to take out at a random bend in the river, but one has to wonder how the company training them didn't tell them every feature for at least three miles past the takeout.
As for the canyoneering drowning--that sounds awful. Fording a river seems like such a simple task, but it can be so dangerous.
The first time I rafted, we were on the New River in West Virginia. We took a raft ourselves with a novice guide just for fun, and flipped in Class IV rapids. I've never been that scared before.
One weekend she was doing training. The second day things went wrong. People fell out of the raft and had to be recovered. The raft flipped over twice. They were running late. At dusk they found their takeout under water. Half mile down the river in the dark on a sharp bend in the river a guy managed to grab a tree branch. A woman climbed over him and got a rope on it. They pulled themself to shore and tied off. Found a flat spot 40 feet up a steep embankment and spent the night. Daylight revealed a waterfall and cascade just around the bend.
She said she found out later about a dozen people died that weekend up and down the west coast. And she was done with rafting.
Another friend does canyoneering. Couple of years ago on a trip he missed, a friend was fording a river carrying a rope. Rope tangled him up on a submerged tree. He drowned with his friends watching from the rivers edge.