To Heaven and Back (7 page)

Anne paddled into the channel on the right, knocked the broached boat loose, and continued into the pool below. Chad went down the main channel. The water was so deep in this drop that he didn’t see or feel anything as he paddled down the drop and right over the two boats (and me) that were submerged at the bottom.

As Chad and Anne entered the pool below, they noted boater number one swimming in the water, and easily located her boat which had been dislodged from the right channel. They were then surprised to see a second swimmer (this was the
boater whose boat was on top of mine), but could not immediately locate her boat. Chad quickly paddled into an eddy to further evaluate the situation. He could see boater one. Her boat had been dislodged by Anne, and he easily located it on the river bank. He also could see the second boater sitting on a rock in the middle of the river, but he could not immediately locate her boat. At last, he finally caught a glimpse of her red boat at the bottom of the main channel.

It was difficult for Anne and Chad to account for everyone as, at this point in time, our group of paddlers was split: some of the boaters were below the drop and some were still above the drop. It took several minutes and several head counts before Anne was firmly convinced that both my boat and I were missing. Familiar with emergency situations, she started her watch.

A person paddling a whitewater kayak is held in the kayak by a combination of their spray skirt and the tight fit of their body inside their boat. A spray skirt is a neoprene sheet that encircles a kayaker’s waist, stretches to the boat’s deck, and forms a tight fit around the cockpit in order to keep water out of the boat. A strip of fabric known as a “grab loop” is sewn to the front edge of the spray skirt, where it wraps around the cockpit. When it is necessary to exit the boat, the paddler can “pull the chute,” or, in other words, pull up on the grab loop to release the spray skirt from the deck of the boat, thereby allowing the paddler to use his legs to push himself out of the boat.

When I first realized that I was pinned in the waterfall, I did not panic and I did not struggle, but I desperately tried to get out of my boat by using some standard techniques.

I repeatedly and forcefully tried to reach the grab loop of my spray skirt, but the power of the water forcing my arms downstream was too great and my attempts were laughable. I tried to push against the foot braces. I tried to jiggle the boat. I thought about my family and desperately tried to raise my head out of the water in search of air. I quickly realized that I was not in control of my future.

God had saved me more than once in the past so I, once again, reached toward God and asked for His divine intervention. I did not demand rescue. I knew that He loved me and had a plan for me. I asked only that His will be done. At the very moment I turned to Him, I was overcome with an absolute feeling of calm, peace, and of the very physical sensation of being held in someone’s arms while being stroked and comforted. I felt like I imagine a baby must feel when being lovingly caressed and rocked in his mother’s bosom. I also experienced an absolute certainty that everything would be okay, regardless of the outcome.

I thought about my husband and young children, about the Longs, and about my life on earth. I thought about my relationship with God. I was grateful that He was holding me and marveled at the intense physicality of this feeling.
I easily recalled a long-forgotten poem that hung on the wall of the home of a childhood friend. I had absent-mindedly read it each time I entered my friend’s house and now understood its words. The poem was “Footprints in the Sand” by Carolyn Joyce Carty. I have since purchased framed copies that hang in my home and on my office wall. I continue to read these words almost every day:

Although I felt God was present and holding me, I was still entirely conscious of my predicament and my surroundings. I was able to feel the current pushing and pulling my body and feel the pressure of the water. I could not see anything or hear anything but I was acutely aware of everything that was happening around and within me. I was comfortable, calm, and marveled at God’s presence.

When I no longer felt myself trying to breathe, I assumed that I would die. My thoughts returned to my husband and children and as I pondered what would become of them without my presence as a wife and mother, I was deeply and profoundly reassured that they would be okay; even if I died.

As I waited under water, I thought about and analyzed my life; its course, my choices, my joys, and my regrets. I thought about everything. Eventually, I thought about how bored I was. I was tired of thinking and tired of waiting; I was ready to get on with the journey, whatever that was meant to be. With the assurance that all would be okay regardless of the outcome, I found myself impatiently urging God to “Hurry up.”

While I was experiencing profound comfort, peace, and boredom, the rest of my companions were not so tranquil. When Chad realized I was missing, he frantically looked for my boat. He climbed out of his boat and began to scurry upstream. Tom was boating “sweep” when he saw his son jump onto a rock. He called out to Chad, only to be told that there was one boat stuck, and I and my boat were both missing. Tom was insistent, saying, “Boys, you have to find her!”

As Chad reached the rock ledge above and near the main channel, he saw what he thought was the red of my helmet. The call went out and within a minute, Tom, Chad, and Kenneth were all surveying the situation from the same ledge. They
could see my helmet, but there was about four feet of deep, strong current between the ledge upon which they were standing and me. The water was too deep and fast moving for anyone to stand in it, and the gap was too wide to step across or span. It was a classic example of the phrase “so close, yet so far.”

Chad held Tom as Tom tried to lean across the gap. Tom then tried to jump the gap in order to grab my boat. He succeeded only in being flushed under my boat and into the pool below.

Again and again they were unsuccessful in their attempts to reach me, and each attempt brought increased yelling and a rising sense of desperation, despair, and discouragement. Nothing seemed to be working. Tom describes everyone in our group, including Chad and Kenneth, as being in a state of “tragic terror.”

Anne and the other kayakers sat in the pool below consumed by a feeling of total helplessness and mounting hopelessness. The Longs are well versed in, and quite experienced with whitewater rescue, but this was different. Not only was it me, their friend, who was in peril, but they seemed to be making no appreciable progress toward a successful rescue. Nothing they did seemed to work. Time seemed to bend and stand still.

When Tom surfaced after another failed attempt to reach me, he heard Chad yelling, “Hurry, hurry.”
It had been a number of minutes and they were all aware of the importance of speed. This was quickly becoming the work of body recovery rather than rescue. The boys desperately tried to think of something that would help, including ways to divert the water so that they could reach my boat. As Tom neared total despair, he climbed back onto the rock and felt the scene totally change. The situation seemed to shift, like a light switch being clicked.

He felt like they had spent five or more minutes imitating the Keystone Cops, then suddenly it was different. He felt the atmosphere shift and felt the physical proximity of God. Tom had the distinct feeling that God was saying to them, “You guys are pathetic. Nothing you are doing is going to work, so I had better get involved.” Tom felt as if time shifted and God was taking control. Trying to express this to Chad, Tom said, “This has got to be supernatural.” Chad thought that his dad meant that his efforts needed to be supernatural, so he reassured Tom that he was trying as hard as possible. Tom told him, “No, not that. I mean this really must be supernatural.”

Things began to happen.

They looked down and a dry rock suddenly appeared in the middle of the water flow that separated them from me. They were able to step onto this rock and use it as a platform from which they could reach my boat. Chad was then able to straddle the rocks and securely grip my boat.
He had solid footing and was pulling downstream. He was a young, strong, world-champion athlete and everything was aligned for success. He thought to himself, “This will be the time that superhuman strength will kick in, like the woman who is suddenly able to lift the car off of her child.”

He pulled forcefully with all of his strength and with the absolute belief that he would be successful. Nothing happened. He felt that if anything was going to work, this is when it would have worked. It didn’t. Chad felt totally inadequate and felt that he, and they, had failed me. Kenneth said they tried again and again to move my boat, but it was stuck—really stuck.

Kenneth, Chad, and Tom felt totally helpless with the realization that they could not move my boat. They each noted that only God’s intervention would make a difference and, as they reached for my boat one more time, Tom describes feeling a “sonic boom without the sound.” My boat rolled a little bit and suddenly Chad was in the water.

During this “sonic boom,” my boat shifted slightly, moving my body more fully into the current. The force of this current ripped off my lifejacket and helmet, and then sucked me out of my boat and down the river.

No one saw me exit the boat, but Chad caught a glimpse of something red downstream. He thought
it was my lifejacket and sadly thought he should retrieve it for my family. He dove in and grabbed my lifejacket as it bobbed to the surface. As he held my empty lifejacket, he felt my body bump into his legs. He hadn’t even known I was there. He reached into the water, grabbed my wrist, and hung on tightly.

Anne, still in her boat, paddled over to help him swim my purple, bloated, oxygen-starved body to the shore. My eyes were devoid of life.

The Longs teach water rescue courses, so they are often the first people called to the scene of an accident on the Payette River. Mine would not have been the first dead body they recovered from a river, but Chad was devastated. Later on he told me this was because he had “watched someone I love die,” and he felt that they had utterly failed me. Tom said the atmosphere felt “crushing—like being in the middle of a big car crusher.”

They dragged my body to the rocky river bank, where Tom, Chad, and Kenneth began systematically to move through the standard steps of evaluation and resuscitation. Eleven to fourteen minutes had passed since Anne had started her watch, and the atmosphere was gloomy as they began CPR. Tensions were heightened when one woman insisted that they should not revive me, as “she will just be a vegetable,” and another boater wanted to videotape the whole event.