Almost a Floater
May 25, 2000
At first I thought the guy was yelling “Bill” out across the river — presumably trying to get the attention of a friend. We were about 100 yards away and I had the motor on the boat going, so I didn’t pay much attention. I continued upriver without thinking twice about it.
Billlllllllllll!
No Bills on this boat, buddy. Then, just as we got almost out of earshot, I heard the voice again. That time, however, I’d swear I heard “Bill me.” It was the “me” part that caught my attention. Unless the man was on a cell phone ordering a magazine subscription, the word “me” didn’t have much use in this particular context. Then it hit me — he was yelling “help me!” I spun the boat around and went rushing downstream to take a look. I scanned the shoreline, but couldn’t see anyone.
Help me!
I could hear the voice more clearly then, garbled and desperate, but there was still no sign of anybody. Then I saw him. He was laying in the water near the far bank almost motionless. I gunned the outboard, and as we approached, I saw that he was an elderly gentleman, clad in waders, completely underwater save for his mouth and nose…barely. I ran the boat hard onto the gravel bar and jumped out to grab the poor guy.
When I got to him, his eyes were as big as golf balls and they had the look of extreme terror in them. They were pointed skyward and didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. His face was deathly pale and I figured we were just a minute too late. He was dead. To my great relief, however, he muttered something as I grabbed his arm. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but at least he was still alive. He was a big man — easily over 250 pounds of dead weight — plus all the water in his waders. It took two of us to drag him out of the drink.
Once on the shore, the man couldn’t even stand up. As we peeled off his waders, he told us he’d been fishing and slipped on a rock. Under he went. Fortunately, there was a back eddy where he went in and it had pulled him away from the main current and back towards shore. Had that not happened, he’d be a goner for sure. He had fought to within a couple feet of the bank, but the cold drained all his energy and he eventually couldn’t move. He said he’d been in the water for over a half hour by the time we found him, so he was pretty chilled. What a feeling it must have been to know you were going to die within mere feet of safety. I jumped in and retrieved his expensive Sage fly rod and a bunch of his gear and then we helped him into my boat. As we went for help, I found the man’s hat floating in an eddy and picked that up too.
The 100-plus degree heat dried him out pretty well, but we still had some paramedics come down to check him out because he was complaining about feeling woozy. Turns out that the guy was 86 years old and had been fishing the American River for shad since the 1930’s. One year, he even caught 649 of the silvery buggers, he told us.
When you’re in rescue mode, you don’t do a lot of thinking outside of the situation. Once things calm down, however, you begin to reflect a little. I started thinking about how this guy probably had a million fascinating stories to tell about his life and how he was close to never telling them anymore; I thought about how he was more than just a guy out fishing — we’d pulled somebody’s husband, dad, grandpa, best buddy out of the river. And I keep thinking back to the guy’s hat floating out in the river. I’ve seen a million of them out there, but I always assumed that they were blown off by the wind or accidentally dropped, and that the people who’s heads filled them were still alive and well. The next time I see one floating by, however, I won’t be so sure. Let’s all be careful out there, people. I really don’t want to see your hat in the river.
Comments
Got something to say?