Low-head dam drowning on Yakima River, WA State
 

wrote in message
...
Bill Tuthill wrote:
That's why one possibility is to remove your pfd and crawl on the
bottom past the boil,

Think about that carefully for a second. Crawl on the bottom? With all that
current and turbulence? This is the problem when hypotheticals become
anecdotal. Does anyone know of anyone who has 'crawled along the bottom of
the river' at the base of a waterfall or in fast current? I certainly don't,
although I know of lots of folks who have been recirced and flushed.

I think the actuality would be that you would be tumbling around like a
ragdoll, no idea what was happening or what way was up, rapidly running out
of air and without a PFD. With any luck you might flush through the bottom
and come up for air while you still had enough clarity of mind to know when
to grab a breath, but you'd probably not have enough wits to know which way
to swim to the surface. Certainly this is better than flushing around the
recirc until you drowned, but I suspect that in real life, its a
disorienting and disasterous situation.

No offense to the poster, but people throw around this self-rescue technique
like its a pretty straightforward deal, and I think its not only not
straightforward, I have serious doubts about how often it even happens as
described.

--riverman

Low-head dam drowning on Yakima River, WA State
 

Per :
you are likely to drown without your pfd even out
of the dam..

Because of exhaustion? Cold water?

Recalling my surfing days (long, long ago... far, far away...) we went through
some fairly extensive rinse cycles without drowning. e.g. getting enveloped by
12-14 foot breaking waves and tumbled in the suds for what seemed like very long
times, getting knocked unconscious by one's own board, loosing teeth and
breaking jaws by "eating" a board, and so-forth. The only guys I knew of that
got killed managed it by getting slammed into the reef where the wave was
braking in extremely shallow water.

I've read of extreme surfers dying when they wiped out under 20+ foot waves and
were either knocked unconscious at depth or just held down too long.

In the environment I was in, wearing a PFD would've been considered - among
other things - counterproductive because it would have removed the option of
sliding under the base of a breaking wave or dodging an oncoming surfer,
outrigger canoe, jet ski... or whatever.
--
PeteCresswell

Low-head dam drowning on Yakima River, WA State
 

"Bob P" wrote in message
. com...
riverman wrote:
"Bob P"
It's the only path where the water takes you to safety rather than
holding you against the top flow. I've never use it, and I certainly
don't intend to experiment, but the logic is reasonable.

Sure, if you assume that all the natural variations don't exist. All
logic is reasonable is you start with 'lets ignore any diversity to the
model'. Its like that old joke about the mathematician, the physicist and
the engineer betting on a horserace, and the mathematician says 'assume a
spherical horse'. :-)

--riverman
So you wouldn't try the maneuver even if you knew you were going to drown
if you did nothing?

Here's a little story. It happened to me about 20 years ago.

We were paddling the Thurmond-to-Fayette section of the New River (WV) at
fairly low water.

About 2/3 of the way down there's an huge rock on river right (unknown to
me as The Undercut Rock). I had run the rapid a couple of times before at
high water and pillowed off the rock quite nicely. This time, however, I
came right up to the rock, broached and flipped upstream. The boat was
sucked down, down, down and finally lodged quite nicely upside down with
me in it. I popped my skirt, undid my thigh straps, and tried to push
myself out of the boat, but the water pressure kept me pinned. Tried
again, and again.

Hey! I'm going to die here! Time for a Desperation Move!

I reached above my head (actually down) and, (Holy Crap!) there was the
cockpit rim of another pinned boat below me. Somehow, I was then able to
pull myself out using the cockpit rim. I guess that the extra reach was
enough to get me all the way out of the boat.

I pushed off and was able to get into the current enough to get around the
rock. Come on Charlie Walbridge (pfd)!!! I reached the surface just
before I was about to take a nasty breath of water.

My boat came out 2 days later, when the water dropped even more.

So sometimes you do things, even if they have a low probability of
success.

I know exactly which rock your talking about. I think it was back around
1990 when I ran that stretch of river. A lady from a rubber raft got
bounced out and stuck under that rock. The current was so strong they could
not recover her body for like 2 months. You got locky under that rock.
When I used to run the new river, something like 2-3 people a year have been
killed in that section.

Low-head dam drowning on Yakima River, WA State
 

riverman wrote:

That's why one possibility is to remove your pfd and crawl on the
bottom past the boil,

Think about that carefully for a second. Crawl on the bottom? With all that
current and turbulence? This is the problem when hypotheticals become
anecdotal. Does anyone know of anyone who has 'crawled along the bottom of
the river' at the base of a waterfall or in fast current? I certainly don't,
although I know of lots of folks who have been recirced and flushed.

One time (in a natural hole) I was recirced three times. On the third
approach to the pour-over, I got my legs out and kicked as hard as I could
into the rock creating the pour-over, like a turn in competitive swimming.
The momentum created was enough to push me out of the boil area.

Don't know if anybody read the URL I posted, but it seems to me that Rocky
had much difficulty in, and without PFD barely survived, the class IV swim
below Royal Flush.

A friend of mine once saved his own life by crawling along the bottom,
but it was in a body-entrapment tunnel, not a low-head dam recirculation.

On another note, it is possible to build low-risk low-head dams. The AWA
could form an engineering advirosy group to make recommendations for 'em.

Low-head dam drowning on Yakima River, WA State
 

"Bill Tuthill" wrote:

On another note, it is possible to build low-risk low-head dams. The AWA
could form an engineering advirosy group to make recommendations for 'em.

Actually, there is a project underway (assuming it gets all the necessary
approvals and funding) for turning the Calgary Weir (Calgary, Canada) from
one of the most lethal weirs around into a safe whitewater play park, with
several passable channels of varying difficulty.

-Paul

Low-head dam drowning on Yakima River, WA State
 

Per (PeteCresswell):
Because of exhaustion? Cold water?

Forget it.... now I'm reading some of the other poster's accounts of near misses
and I'm starting to get the pictu Moving water is a whole quantum leap more
hazardous than plain old surf...
--
PeteCresswell

Low-head dam drowning on Yakima River, WA State
 

wrote:
"riverman" wrote:

Think about that carefully for a second. Crawl on the bottom? With all that
current and turbulence? This is the problem when hypotheticals become
anecdotal. Does anyone know of anyone who has 'crawled along the bottom of
the river'

I seem to recall that a person got stuck in Charlie's Hole (where
Scott Bristow was killed in 98) on the Great Falls section of the
Potomac, and crawled out along the bottom. From what I heard (which
may be urban legend) the bottom of the hole is a boulder pile with
water flowing thru the boulders so it is not exactly like a low head
dam.

The hole looks a bit like a hand with the palm pointed up, the water
flows between the fingers, with the left and right rocks next to the
hole being the thumb and little finger. Any wood sticking between the
fingers turns it into a very effective sieve.

From having stood on the edge of the rock next to Charlie's hole
(trying to look for Scott's body), I remember that it was so violent (at
that water level) that I seriously doubt that anyone could crawl out
against that current.
That's just my opinion...

IIRC someone went for a swim that morning (or the day before) before
Scott died, and he managed to get out alive. Don't remember what he did
to get out though.



--
Wilko van den Bergh wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://kayaker.nl/

Low-head dam drowning on Yakima River, WA State
 

Wilko wrote:
wrote:
"riverman" wrote:

Think about that carefully for a second. Crawl on the bottom? With all that
current and turbulence? This is the problem when hypotheticals become
anecdotal. Does anyone know of anyone who has 'crawled along the bottom of
the river'

I seem to recall that a person got stuck in Charlie's Hole (where
Scott Bristow was killed in 98) on the Great Falls section of the
Potomac, and crawled out along the bottom. From what I heard (which
may be urban legend) the bottom of the hole is a boulder pile with
water flowing thru the boulders so it is not exactly like a low head
dam.

The hole looks a bit like a hand with the palm pointed up, the water
flows between the fingers, with the left and right rocks next to the
hole being the thumb and little finger. Any wood sticking between the
fingers turns it into a very effective sieve.

From having stood on the edge of the rock next to Charlie's hole
(trying to look for Scott's body), I remember that it was so violent (at
that water level) that I seriously doubt that anyone could crawl out
against that current.
That's just my opinion...

IIRC someone went for a swim that morning (or the day before) before
Scott died, and he managed to get out alive. Don't remember what he did
to get out though.



I apologize Wilko for requesting your response to my questions, on this
memorial post to your friend Scott, but hopefully you will help me out
with the info I requested, so that I would not have to post on other
special occaisions in order to get your attention! TnT

Low-head dam drowning on Yakima River, WA State
 

"Tinkerntom" wrote in message
oups.com...

Wilko wrote:
wrote:
"riverman" wrote:

Think about that carefully for a second. Crawl on the bottom? With all
that
current and turbulence? This is the problem when hypotheticals become
anecdotal. Does anyone know of anyone who has 'crawled along the
bottom of
the river'

I seem to recall that a person got stuck in Charlie's Hole (where
Scott Bristow was killed in 98) on the Great Falls section of the
Potomac, and crawled out along the bottom. From what I heard (which
may be urban legend) the bottom of the hole is a boulder pile with
water flowing thru the boulders so it is not exactly like a low head
dam.

The hole looks a bit like a hand with the palm pointed up, the water
flows between the fingers, with the left and right rocks next to the
hole being the thumb and little finger. Any wood sticking between the
fingers turns it into a very effective sieve.

From having stood on the edge of the rock next to Charlie's hole
(trying to look for Scott's body), I remember that it was so violent (at
that water level) that I seriously doubt that anyone could crawl out
against that current.
That's just my opinion...

IIRC someone went for a swim that morning (or the day before) before
Scott died, and he managed to get out alive. Don't remember what he did
to get out though.



I apologize Wilko for requesting your response to my questions, on this
memorial post to your friend Scott, but hopefully you will help me out
with the info I requested, so that I would not have to post on other
special occaisions in order to get your attention! TnT


Hi Tom:
Threatening to become a nusiance to prove that you're not a troll? That will
easily support your claim of not being a netkook. Be sure to cover it with
the caveat that 'he started it'.

--riverman

Low-head dam drowning on Yakima River, WA State
 

On 14 Jun 2006 18:48:36 -0700, "Tinkerntom" wrote:


(snipped)

I apologize Wilko for requesting your response to my questions, on this
memorial post to your friend Scott, but hopefully you will help me out
with the info I requested, so that I would not have to post on other
special occaisions in order to get your attention! TnT

You should apologize to everyone who reads the newsgroup. Keep your
little flame spats out of normal posts, please.

I don't care if you're the troll / whatever he thinks you are, but
when you do things like that, you certainly lose credibility as a
useful or interesting poster.
--

r.bc: vixen
Speaker to squirrels, willow watcher, etc..
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless. Really.

Don't ask me what time it is lest I'm of
a mood to tell you how to make a clock.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli