Rafting trauma

Life is precious and precarious. One of my best friends, John Vawter, wrote me the following note and gave me permission to share it with you.

I almost lost Susan Sunday in the Grand Canyon. Below is what I wrote yesterday in my journal.

I woke up about 2:30 this morning and Susan was lying beside me in bed. Later, when it was time to get up I laid in bed and listened to her breathe while she still slept. I laid there for quite awhile listening to her breathe. I thanked God that she was there...beside me…breathing and alive. Let me explain.


Yesterday I went to Page, AZ to meet Susan and our son Michael who were returning to Page from a week floating on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. I knew something was up by the way they greeted me when I pulled up to the curb at the Page airport. They were standing with other rafters who were waiting for their respective rides. Michael hugged me and then said, “Hug Mom gently.” He then said, “I will drive and you sit in the back with Mom.” Her left wrist is swollen and bruised. Together they said they needed something to drink and they would explain the injury when we got to the restaurant…any restaurant.

On Sunday, which was the last day on the river before they were lifted out by helicopter on Monday to catch a small plane back to Page, they stopped before lunch to hike up the famous Havasu Creek which is the second largest tributary that flows into the Colorado. They explained that the beauty of the side canyon caused by the creek is unexcelled.

As they were coming back down Michael was helping an older woman who was having trouble with her footing. He was about 30 yards ahead of Susan. Michael had just gotten the woman to the point where she felt comfortable to walk on her own when he heard everyone screaming. Susan had slipped and fallen head over heels down a 10 foot stair stepped rock wall and tumbled into the river…which had a very strong current. She was not wearing a life jacket. They had been instructed to grab the top of their life jackets near the throat and position their feet down river if they ever fell in. She did that…and realized she did not have a jacket on. The current took her down twice and she had trouble kicking because the shirt which had been tied around her waist was now pulled down around her feet. She was pushed under one of the boats and when she popped out she was being pulled down the river. (Remember, I am hearing this for the first time in the restaurant in Page. I wanted to ask questions but they continued.)

Another boating group had tied up along side the two boats of Susan’s and Michael’s group. That group was also hiking up the Havasu Creek canyon. One of their boatmen had broken his flip flop and was back in his boat getting a replacement when he saw Susan struggling and floating by. He immediately put on his life jacket, grabbed a flotation device and jumped in…and got to her almost immediately. He said (as they are trained to do), “Hi, I’m Craig. What’s your name?” One of the boatmen from Michael’s and Susan’s group got on his life jacket jumped in almost at the same time. He was upriver and it took a short while before he got out to them as the three of them were swept out of sight around the cliff wall.

Michael said he was tempted to jump in—without a life jacket—to get Susan. He was prevented from doing this because some boats were between her and him. This forced him to think clearly and get a life jacket on before he did anything. Otherwise, two people would have been in the river without life jackets—and those two people would have been my wife and my son.

The other boatmen, an EMT from Las Vegas who was a fellow rafter and Michael got into one of the boats. They were frantic to get down river. It was a struggle to get the boat out because it was jammed between the other boats by the force of the current. The crew cut the ropes to get their boat loose as it was faster than untying. People on the shore pushed and Michael pushed against one of the other boats to get their boat out.

Meanwhile Susan and the two men had floated on down the river out of sight beyond a rock cliff. Together they floated about 130-150 yards down the river and got over to a small eddy where the currents were not so strong. But there was an overhanging rock wall that was very jagged so they had nothing onto which they could hold.

Those in the boat did get to Susan and the two boatmen and pulled them in. The disaster was averted. When they got Susan back to where the spot where the other boats were docked the EMT checked her over. She has abrasions on her leg, hip, back and the banged up left wrist and hand which will be x-rayed today. She also has a sore neck which the doctor will check out when she is with him today. Michael said the whole ordeal took less than ten minutes (maybe five) but it seemed like an hour.

Michael encouraged me not to consider the “what if?” questions. That was/is hard to do. As we sat in the restaurant I asked Susan if she thought she was going to drown. She answered in her characteristically understated way, “That thought crossed my mind.” Michael joined in and said, “I thought it as I saw Mom being pulled by the currents past the boats” and then he began to cry. He also said that after the EMT checked out Susan their entire group got in their two boats and continued their journey down river because the government maintains a fairly tight schedule on the boats on the river, their locations, etc. It was then…about an hour after the ordeal…that the impact of what could have happened hit him and it was then that he broke down and cried over the thought of losing his mother.

So, I laid in bed this morning listening to Susan breathe as she slept. The “what if?” questions crept into my mind? “What if she had drowned? What if her body had not been found? What would it have felt like to wake up without her beside me?” There are more “what if?” questions but I am trying to follow son Michael’s advice and not go there. I am just grateful for the broken flip-flop that put the boatman in exactly the right spot to jump in to rescue Susan. As you can imagine I thank God for that man…and I thank Him that my dear Susan is alive…and breathing beside me this morning when I awakened.

Susan's rafting journal will appear in the next blog