"riverman" wrote
Hey, tell us about a near drowning. Those are always interesting...

--riverman
(for everyone involved)

well, i have two near drownings. neither all that serious, but "near"
enough for me.

first: on the outer banks of north carolina, about 1950. i was 8.
couldn't swim worth a damn. very wild beach, with serious undertow
currents. i was there with my aunt and her girlfriend. that's
right--girlfriend. they kept cautioning me to stay close to the beach. i
wandered off, chasing baitfish. stepped in a hole that was a couple feet
deeper than me, lost traction, and headed out to sea. flailing, screaming,
hysterical, inhaled about a gallon of seawater, began to go out (i will
never forget the horror of it), and was suddenly grabbed by someone (i never
knew who), was pulled back to shore, where i threw up water, etc., and came
around.
second: went to miami beach on a whim with three other wealthy,
spoiled, sorry mutha****ers in the summer of 1958, the year before my high
school graduation. we wanted to go scuba diving. walked right in to a
shop, no training, no questions asked, and we headed for the "government
cut", a breakwater that leads from the waterway to the open ocean at miami
beach. famous then and now (i suppose) for its underwater lifeforms. had
tanks, fins, and face masks. walked out about 100 yds on the rocks and
jumped in. had no real idea of our air supply time. was having one helluva
good time underwater, looking at fish, eels, etc, when it became very
difficult to breath. so what; just surface, and climb the jetty. wrong.
the waves were crashing into the rocks, and their underwater surface was
covered with barnacles sharp as buck knives. when you got the tanks out of
the water, their weight immediately drove you back under the surface. any
attempt to hold on to the rocks resulted in being cut to pieces by the
barnacles.
obviously, i escaped. or, more accurately, i was salvaged by my
friends, who had recognized the loss of oxygen, discarded their tanks, and
swam out to look for me. two of them herded me to shore, bleeding like the
proverbial stuck pig.
the infections from my barnacle cuts came closer to killing me than the
sea itself.

sorry for the length. but you asked for it.

yfitons
wayno