To Heaven and Back (6 page)

Although Bill had grown up in Los Angeles, we had never really planned to stay in Southern California. We lived in Los Angeles in order to be close to Bill’s family, but his brothers had recently moved to other states and his parents were planning to retire and move north. Leaving my job at USC not only freed me from academic medicine, it also freed my family from the final bond that tied us to Los Angeles. I had redefined my personal priorities and now our family had the opportunity to do the same. Bill and I both wanted to move to a place that was smaller than Los Angeles and where our children could experience nature on a daily basis without the need to drive several hours to do so.

We sat down and made a Venn diagram of the places where I would like to live and those where Bill would like to live. A Venn diagram consists of overlapping circles that represent different groups. The overlapping portions of the circles represent the common characteristics of the two groups. The Venn diagram of our potential living locations looked something like this.

Our family enjoyed being out-of-doors and being physically active with biking, kayaking, sailing, camping, skiing, and many other sports, so we were looking for a scenic place that offered great recreational opportunities, clean air, and a healthy environment in which we could raise our children. In comparing our preferences, we found that the only overlapping choice was Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Jackson Hole is a delightful valley surrounded by towering granite mountains, beautiful rivers, lakes, forests, and abundant wildlife.
A somewhat rural area, with approximately 20,000 full-time residents, it offers world-class winter and summer sports and we thought it would offer a safe and loving community in which to raise our children. It was also, unfortunately, not the sort of town with much opportunity for two additional orthopaedic surgeons. We looked at our Venn diagram again, and decided to remain in Los Angeles. As I said earlier, we were not unhappy and by this time, I had learned to “let go and let God.” I was confident that when ready, God would show us the plans He had for us.

Several weeks after making this decision, Bill was absent-mindedly flipping through a medical journal when he came upon an advertisement for Jackson Hole. The local orthopaedic group was looking for a spine surgeon to join them. Bill hesitated just a bit before showing me the advertisement, as he had an inner feeling that this one action would change our future. As soon as he showed it to me I applied for the position, interviewed with the partners, and was offered a job. Less than four months later, we were heading to Wyoming loaded up with cars, boats, kids, and cats.

We immediately fell in love with our new community. The people were dynamic, welcoming, and supportive and the outdoor recreational opportunities were abundant. We dove headlong into our “new” life, and took pleasure in watching our kids also embrace the many new opportunities. Just before our move to Wyoming, Willie, our nine-year-old
oldest child, and Bill attended a kayaking camp in California where they were befriended by the course organizer, Tom Long.

Tom and his wife, Debbi, had grown up in Southern California, but moved to Boise, Idaho, in the early 1970s. In 1975, they took over the Cascade Raft and Kayak Company on the Payette River. When we first met them, their three sons were impressive teenage paddlers, enjoying much success on the international level. Kenneth and Chad competed together in C-2 races (whitewater and slalom racing in a two-person, closed-deck canoe), while Tren competed individually in a closed-deck kayak. In order for the boys to have access to winter training opportunities, the Longs began spending winters kayaking in South America on the rivers of Chile. As a means to defray some of the cost of this lifestyle, they began to organize Chilean river trips for American clients.

As our relationship with the Longs grew deeper, Bill and I spent more time talking about going to Chile with them. We were both quite fond of the entire Long family and thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent paddling with them on the Payette River. In the summer of 1998, I finally thought all the kids were old enough for us to leave the country without them, so I decided to take Bill kayaking in South America as a special present for his January birthday.

In January 1999, Bill and I left our children in the capable hands of our nanny and flew from our wonderful Wyoming winter to the delightful Chilean summer. This was our first trip “alone” since Peter’s birth and we were looking forward to a terrific adventure. We flew into Temuco, which is about seven hours south of Santiago and about one hour north of our destination of Pucón.

Pucón is a resort-destination town on the shores of the deep and beautiful Lake Villarica, thriving in the shadow of the 9,315-foot Villarica volcano. It is in the heart of Chile’s IX Region, the Lake District. This region is populated by multiple
glacier-topped volcanos, providing clear, cool water to the many rivers that form these beautiful lakes.

We stayed in a rental house with the Longs who, at that time, consisted of; Tom and Debbi, Kenneth, their twenty-year-old son, and his wife, Anne, Chad, their eighteen-year-old son, and Tren, their sixteen-year-old youngest son.

We spent a delightful week with Tom, kayaking on the rivers and playing in the whitewater of southern Chile. Bill and I were already proficient kayakers, but we continued to work on our Eskimo rolls, our boating skills in pushy and steep water, and we paddled a number of both scenic and challenging rapids. We also practiced our Spanish, absorbed the wonderful culture, and enjoyed the lake, the town, and the exquisite scenery. Evenings were spent chatting around a blazing fire after first walking into town for ice cream. The time was thoroughly relaxing and we were sad to realize that the end of our trip was quickly approaching.

We began to make plans for our final day of boating, which was to be on the Fuy River with Tom, Kenneth, Chad, Anne, several Americans with whom we had never boated, and a young Chilean man who was working for the Longs that summer.

The Fuy is a river in the Southern Chilean Los Ríos Region that drains from the northern end of Lake Pirihueico and winds along the northern foothills of the Choshuenco volcano before joining
the Neltume River to form the Llanquihue River, which then empties into the glacial Panguipulli Lake. Bill and I are experienced kayakers and have paddled many challenging rivers in the United States, so we were looking forward to our run down the upper section of the Fuy, which is known for its tropical beauty and array of challenging waterfalls – drops of ten to twenty feet, making them exciting but well within our paddling skills.

We first drove to the small village of Choshuenco (population 625) near the shores of Panguipulli, then further to the river put-in. This was a remote area of very sparse population, thick forest, and no development. Once on the river, there really wouldn’t be the option to stop paddling or get off the river, so when Bill quite unexpectedly awoke that morning with significant back pain, he decided not to boat.

Although it was a typical sunny, warm Chilean day, I didn’t have a good feeling about the trip. I am not a socially graceful person, so assumed it was just my underlying awkwardness and unease of being in a group of new people. Retrospectively, Anne also had a sense of great unease. She wasn’t sure why she felt this way. At the time, she thought she was uncomfortable because she was not totally familiar with this river and we were putting on the river later than we had planned, or maybe because it was a group of people who had not previously boated together. Regardless of the reason, she felt a generalized sense of stress.

Bill dropped us off at the put-in, where we met up with the other Americans, and there were joking comments made about being able to see me easily because I was wearing my husband’s bright red drytop instead of a more subdued color of paddling shirt. There was some expected anxiety about the anticipated waterfalls and the possibility of boaters making flat landings, as this can cause a broken back. So there were also comments made to the effect that we would be in good company since I am a spine surgeon. As we put on the river, Chad called out to my husband, “We will bring back your wife, and she won’t be an inch shorter” (humorously implying that I wouldn’t compress my spine with any flat landings). Bill drove off in the truck, intending to find a sunny spot in which to spend the day reading. He planned to meet us at the take-out later in the day.

As our group started down the river, there didn’t seem to be any clear boating order, but I tried to stay away far from one particular boater who seemed to have limited skills, no sense of boundaries, and made me feel very apprehensive. I disregarded my apprehension, as it was a beautiful afternoon and I was excited about the upcoming waterfalls.

We approached the first significant drop not long after putting on the river and stopped in an eddy (an area of slow water that is usually downstream of a rock or next to the shore) to discuss how we should run it. There was a narrower channel
to the right side of the river and a larger main channel to the left. We decided to run the smaller channel, as it was more predictable and straight forward. The main drop had a tremendous amount of flow, with a steep drop and large hydraulics at its bottom.

Boater number one paddled toward the channel on the river right, but approached with too much angle and her boat became lodged sideways between the two large boulders flanking the drop. Although her boat was stuck, she was able to exit her boat and flush into the pool of calm water below the drop. I had already exited the eddy and was unable to stop my forward progress when I saw her boat blocking our chosen route, so paddled further to the left.

As I paddled forward, the boater who I had been trying to avoid and who had been behind me, washed out of the upper eddy and then bounced ahead of me. She bobbled a bit before going over the main drop backward. Unknown to me, her boat became lodged in the rocks below the turbulence of the main drop. She was able to exit her boat and swim to a rock in the middle of the pool below. I was unaware of her predicament and had few options, so I continued paddling.

As soon as I crested the top of the waterfall, I saw nothing but trouble and knew I was going to have a problem. A big problem. There was a tremendous volume of water flowing through this
channel, causing the water at the bottom to be chaotic and violent. I saw a large hydraulic formed by the churning waves and saw no exit. I took a very deep breath and dropped down the waterfall and into what would become a great adventure.

Despite the volume and power of the falling water, her boat prevented any hope of making a clean exit. As my boat rocketed down, the front dove under the other boat and became pinned between it and the submerged rocks of the waterfall. The water immediately engulfed me, my boat, and the previously pinned boat. I was upright in my boat, but the water was flowing over the top of me. My boat and I were essentially buried under both falling water and the other boat. The force of the water was so great that I felt like a rag doll. My body was forced onto the front deck of my boat, with my arms helplessly being pulled downriver.