Last weekend I was reviewing my list of "Verisimilitude" stories trying to feel out which one I felt like writing about first. Going through a bit of a writer's block I texted some folks who have been a part of my life long enough to know my stories. One texted me back suggesting I write about a white-water rafting accident I had when I was 15. I immediately dismissed it saying "I need things that had lasting effects on my life." But the more I thought about it over the following few days the more I realized how much of a lasting effect this incident really did have on my life.
Growing up I was pretty damn "prissy". I was a ballerina and a pageant girl. I preferred patent leather shoes and dresses to sneakers and denim. Whenever I attempted something athletic I failed miserably, or just felt a fish out of water. So when I fell hard crush in love with white-water rafting and kayaking at 14, I was totally shocked.
Aside from the giddy thrill of navigating tough runs, I found a love and connection for the outdoors previously unknown. I'm from a very small town in the Rocky Mountains that has a perfect rafting river with awesome rapids running through it. This allowed me to get out on the river nearly every day. I'd go after school and on weekends I could run down it three times a day. The fussy little girl who could never even jump in a pool for fear of getting her hair wet was suddenly laughing with intense joy every time the river would drench me through a rapid.
Living high up in the Rockies, our river was entirely snow runoff from the mountains. As soon as the snow would start to melt in mid-April our river would begin to surge. One day, when the river was practically overflowing with runoff, we decided to take a raft out after school. The river was running so fast that no one was on it. This should have been an indication for us, but we relished in the openness of it. This particular day we were training a new guide how to steer the raft. High water? Newbie guide? F*ck it, let's get on the river already! Warning signs be damned, we launched the raft and were on our way.
Only about 15 minutes into the adventure, we came to "Main Street Bridge". The river was pulling to the left, so we gave instruction to the guide to navigate through the middle of section of the river. At the very last minute his ego got the best of him and he decided to take the far right section, but the river wasn't having any of that action. Our raft hit the pillar at an ungodly speed, causing it to flip and get pinned vertically to the pillar by the rushing water. Us, and all of our equipment, was immediately thrown from the raft into the water.
As we were so close to land, everyone was able to swim to shore rather easily. Everyone, that is, except for me. When we hit the pillar, I blacked out...with a throw rope tangled around my wrist: I was caught, unconscious, and under a rapid.
My eyes fluttered as I was at long last pulled out of the water by an EMT and revived on shore. Have you ever seen someone revived via mouth-to-mouth? The part you don't see on TV is that they 100% of the time throw up all of the water they just inhaled...along with the contents of their stomach. Drowning aside, I was still a teenager, and immediately horrified that I just ralphed orange-cracker puke all over this super hot dude whose LIPS. Were. Just. On. Mine. OMG just let me float back on down that river please.
The physical recovery was pretty quick. I slept off the fatigue and I could finally move my fingers and toes about a month later. I got a touch of giardia from the river (yum!), but that passed with the hypothermia. After our raft was pulled from the water by cranes, the city put a ban on anyone using the river for a good three weeks after that - which definitely made me the most beloved chick among my kayak buddies - not.
All of my friends told me to get back into the water as quickly as possible, to "get back on the horse" so to speak. But I just couldn't do it. Even now - 18 years later - I have an intense fear of getting in any body of water larger than my beloved bathtub. Even at water parks I have paralyzing panic attacks - and not just from the germs! Any time I stand at the water's edge and contemplate overcoming my agonizing fear of drowning, my eyes inadvertently focus on the deep scar on my hand from rope burn by the rope that held me under water so many years ago.
I said up at the top that this event had a lasting effect on me, and I don't just mean my water phobia. Each time tears swell in my eyes when trying to force myself into water, I am reminded how important it is to get control of a fear before it controls you. I realize that might sound hypocritical considering how much this fear controls me, but it was formed because I refused to get back in that water soon after my accident. And that's a mistake I certainly won't make again.
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