It all started one day when I was driving home with a couple of my co-workers/friends. I had made plans to quit my job of 8 years at the end of the summer and so now my friend Bailey and I were discussing all the things we needed to do in the area before I moved away. We were living in prime Canadian wilderness and there was just so much good stuff to do. “Hey we never went white water rafting!” Bailey exclaimed.
“Oh yeah,” I responded, “Well, let’s go then. Let’s go this week!” So right then in the car we pulled up the rafting website and signed up to go a few days later. And at least according to their website, we lived only 30 minutes away from some of the best white water rafting in Canada—the legendary Thompson River, with 25 rapids and difficulty of III+/IV.
The July morning dawned clear and sunny and warm. I was so excited for the adventure that today would bring. Our 6 hour rafting trip began, and the first half was pretty chill. No big rapids. We mostly just learned how to paddle our raft and chatted with the other people. There were about 12 of us aboard. But after our stop for lunch was over was when the thrills began!
The rapid waves were massive. And if you’ve ever been white-water rafting you know the internal dilemma of wishing you could hang on to the raft with all your might but knowing you have to paddle, and that requires two hands. So you’re trying to hang on with your feet haha. And there were also several rapids so big we all had to throw ourselves, at the command of our guide, onto the floor of the raft and hang on for dear life. Definitely a rush. And I was loving it!
Halfway through the big rapids portion, our young rafting guide told us there was a “gentle” rapid up ahead that we could jump out of the raft and float down. He instructed us on how to do it by putting our feet forward and kind of floating it in a sitting position. “And if any waves wash over you, just hold your breath, and you’ll come up a second later. You’ll be totally fine.” He made it sound so simple, easy, and safe. So about 6 of our group decided to try it. Our guide tied a rope to the front of the raft and told us to all hang on to it so that when we were through the rapid he could drag us back in. And it would keep us near the raft and from floating far away. So we jumped in overboard and spaced ourselves out about several feet apart on the rope.
Things started out fine as we bobbed down the rapid and only a little water was splashing into my open laughing/screaming mouth. Then the rapid started jostling us all around. And the next thing I knew the rope was wrapped around my neck! Panic-stricken, I clawed at the rope at my neck and then I was underneath the water as a wave washed over my head. It felt like a noose! What was happening? Back above the water, I tried to scream for help, but I could barely breathe, could hardly see. If you’ve ever had a dream where something awful was happening and you were either trying to run somewhere and you couldn’t move, or you were trying to scream for help and you couldn’t speak, that is exactly what I felt like. With a person holding onto the rope a few feet on either side of me, there was no slack, and I couldn’t get the rope loose enough to unwrap it from my neck. I don’t know that I actually screamed, and I don’t remember what came out of my mouth, but suddenly in front of me was Bailey, like an angel, loosening the rope. She was one of the people hanging onto the rope next to me, so she had let go of the rope to give it enough slack to loosen on me and to use both her hands to help me. As the rope loosened, it slid down my body, still wrapped around me. But the horror wasn’t over yet.
Suddenly, I was sucked down, down, down, as if I wasn’t even wearing a lifejacket. Absolute terror filled my heart as the whirlpool relentlessly pulled me to its depths. I hadn’t even had a chance to get one good breath of air after the rope had come off my neck before I had been sucked under. Opening my eyes and looking up, I could see that I was now underneath the raft. The water was dark and cold. Time seemed to stand still, and I realized, I think I'm going to die. Even if I come up to the surface now, I’ll be under the raft. I still won’t be able to breathe. And it was almost as if I had a feeling of acceptance of the fact that I could die; like it was what it was.
My lungs were burning; I didn’t know how much longer I could hold my breath for. I couldn’t see anymore, and I struggled against the whirlpool to move upwards. But the rope was still wrapped around my body, multiple time it felt like, and I couldn’t seem to move. And then mercifully, somehow, my head was above water and I was next to the raft. Gasping, trying to suck as much air as I could into my oxygen-deprived lungs, I was still so panicked I couldn’t even swim towards the raft. Strong arms pulled me in, and I lay on the bottom of the raft trying not to hyperventilate and calm my heart-rate. “You’re fine, you’re fine,” the guide insisted. “You were only under for like five seconds” he continued, using a tone that implied I was silly for being so freaked out. But I knew I had been under for more than 5 seconds. And he also hadn’t been the one with a rope wrapped around his neck while getting bounced around by rapids.
All back in the raft, we continued our journey down river. And although I was still enjoying the rush of the rapids, I clung to the boat a little more firmly and tried not to think about exactly what had almost just happened.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, Bailey had also been sucked down into the whirlpool. Because she'd been helping me, she'd let go of the rope, and with nothing to help keep her up, the whirlpool pulled her far, far down into the rushing river. She told me later she looked up and could see my feet far up above her, and wondered if she’d ever come back up. Fortunately she did.
Later as I replayed the experience over in my mind, I realized that if that rope had still been around my neck the moment the whirlpool sucked me down that I very well could have died from the extreme tension it would have caused. And if the rope hadn’t been wrapped around my body, I would have been sucked down further, and would I have been able to hold my breath long enough to get all the way back up? And while I don’t know the exact answers to these questions, what I do know is that only by the grace and protection of God was my life, and Bailey’s life, preserved that day. And I’m so grateful.
And white-water rafting is still awesome. Although maybe only from INSIDE the boat.
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