# Scary, But Successful, Rescue - Video



## raftus (Jul 20, 2005)

Sadly most resuscitation attempts fail - somewhat miraculously this one succeeded. I'm glad that the rescuer didn't get entrapped with the victim. 

*Video: Bystander saves kayaker’s life in daring whitewater rescue near Hope Alaska*

https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventure/2017/08/15/daring-rescue-on-six-mile-creek-caught-on-video/


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## Floatin mucho (Mar 25, 2012)

The person rescued had a lake kayak, and was wearing a bike helmet, and chest waiters... And the rescuer jumped directly into the same strainer that trapped the victim. Wild video, I'm glad Darwin missed the mark that day.


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## kayakfreakus (Mar 3, 2006)

Couldn't tell if it was a rescue PFD or not but would sure liked to have a releasable line on me before going live bait rescue into a questionable drop. Monday morning QB - glad it all worked out and that those that could took action.


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## raymo (Aug 10, 2008)

*Nice lnitiative!*

I looked at the top cover of a knee board of a retired USCG pilot working for us on a flight and read a quote on the cover "You have to go out but no where in the Blue Book does it say you have to come back." He told me stories of flying in extreame weather on rescue missions and very sketchy situations to help save others from harm or death. He gained my respect and of many others he has helped, I'm positive.


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## FallingH20 (Nov 10, 2015)

I can't believe nobody in the crowd had a pin kit or a prussic. Could have gotten to the victim a lot quicker and safer by lowering themselves down the fixed rope.
Still, all's well that ends well.
And the rescuer gets extra points for sheer courage and generosity.


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## tango (Feb 1, 2006)

Enjoy the comfort of your armchairs. 

Sometimes the only thing to do is grab that bitch.


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## j-jo-ber (Nov 8, 2013)

Ballsy move and quick response when needed, props to that guy. Two thoughts...

#1 Alaskans are f-ing tough. If the report is true regarding the boat, swimmer's an idiot. But 5 minutes of holding onto that rope in an Alaskan river at 64 years old, then surviving 2 rounds of CPR?? Still an idiot for getting himself into the situation, but at least he wore a PFD and worked his ass off to aid the rescuers. 

#2 The videographer and author of the article signs off the piece as an "avid kayaker." I'm surprised that he remained where he was and just kept filming. That's a very narrow river and setting up a stabilization line would have given the rescuers more time to safely extract the swimmer, but it looks like the only person cross river was too busy filming to catch a rope and tie it off. 

I wasn't there, so no judgments from me on anyone's part (other than the swimmer attempting a class IV river solo in a lake kayak and waders if the report is correct), but there's always a lesson to learn. If anyone knows the author/filmer or if he catches wind of this forum it'd be great to learn what kept him where he was. Didn't have a PFD so didn't feel comfortable putting yourself in danger assisting with the rescue? Video angle doesn't show it, but it was physically impossible to get down from filming location? Assumed there was sufficient response so you continued filming to document the event? Has white water experience but no swift water rescue experience so you weren't aware of stabilization lines?


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## Dodger7777 (Sep 12, 2011)

I'm not surprised by the videographer response. He was in street clothes, 15ft up a steep enbankment, on the wrong side of Class IV current. I imagine crossing that river would have been both difficult and time consuming, particularly seeing that several other boaters were near to assist.

I'm baffled by how the entrapped man was ever jarred lose. I guess the large rescuer rolled him up and over the log? And the log came lose? I can't believe the favorable outcome from this one.


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## buckmanriver (Apr 2, 2008)

The log came out with the swimmer you can see it at the end of the film. 

This type of rescue is defiantly the Alaskan way!


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## ArgoCat (May 14, 2007)

*CPR success*

Just to comment, CPR effectiveness is very different in near drownings, yes, hate the term because drowning is death caused by submersion but there isn't a better term, and lighting strikes (not direct). Yes, the success rate of CPR in Cardiac cases is not great, but that is because it does not fix the underlying cause, which is ussually a blockage of the coronary arteries or a narrowing that is so great that it reduces the ability of the heart to deliver adequate oxygen supplies to the tissues of the myocardium (heart). In these cases, definitive care is needed to fix the cause. 

In near drowning, the patient suffers from an acute loss of oxygen and not an inability of the heart to pump oxygenated blood throughout the system. Heart still works, just needs oxygen. Don't get me wrong, aspiration of fluids can still disrupt the exchange of oxygen in the lungs and fluid in the abdominal cavity can also interfere with respiratory effectiveness. But in fresh water, we can actually push this fluid in the lungs into the bloodstream, which over time increases effectiveness of rescue breathing thus increases chances of survival. 

I didn't count, but the patient didn't seem to be without O2 for very long...maybe a minute or two. We breathe in roughly 21% oxygen and breathe out something like 17-19%...don't feel like looking it up. This is why CPR is effective. In other words, the patient most likely still had a residual oxygen load if he wasn't under for too long. Of course, there is also the mammalian diving reflex, so there is a chance that very little water entered the lungs...but not always.

I guess all I am trying to say is that success rates for "near drownings" are much greater than cardiac events.

Don't feel like really searching academic databases right now, but here are several from the intrawebs:



Yes, really ballsy rescue, but the outcome is really not that surprising.


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## mattman (Jan 30, 2015)

Cold water also helps the outcome of surviving a lack of oxygen.

That rescue makes me wonder about using the "jump in and tackler the victim" method as a last ditch effort for a foot entrapment. It could make the entrapment worse, shoving there foot in deeper, but it might also break there ankle and free them, and if it was about to become a recovery anyway?..... I don't know.
Every situation is different, so it would depend. Rescue instructors always say " if there is room for one, why isn't there room for two" but in a foot entrapment, could potentially be a little bit safer move then a strainer entrapment. Wonder if rescuers could even see the strainer, might have thought it was a foot entrapment.
Not saying what the right thing to do is, just food for thought from this rescue.

Glad the outcome was good!!


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## CBow (Aug 26, 2007)

I don't know how long this guy has lived in Alaska as the article suggests but anyone who lives and paddles in the Anchorage area knows 6 mile is serious whitewater for expert boaters and should have known better. A truly serious error in judgement IMO. Having paddled 6 mile a few times myself it amazes me that this guy thought it a good idea to jump into a a class 4 section of the river with chest waders and a flat water boat. He is truly lucky to be alive after a heroic rescue.


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## daairguy (Nov 11, 2013)

mattman said:


> Cold water also helps the outcome of surviving a lack of oxygen.
> 
> That rescue makes me wonder about using the "jump in and tackler the victim" method as a last ditch effort for a foot entrapment.


I think this is a good point and in a last ditch effort but it also has potential consequences as you stated. It did work out for this situation!


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## Dejan Smaic (Jul 22, 2017)

Three observations here:

1) Rescued kayaker was too inexperienced for the section of river,
2) Rescuer put himself at risk to save another, and did. This is the definition of hero.
3) Too many armchair rescuers judging others in this video.


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## okieboater (Oct 19, 2004)

Several hero's did what needed done to save a fellow boater in trouble. And, they moved fast.

The man that jumped in the water to me is a hero in a group of heros.

All the guys who did what they did and the time frame they did it in deserve our respect.

These rescuer's are definitely the type boaters I respect and would like to boat with.


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## 59330 (May 4, 2017)

A lot has been said already, good points all around. More importantly to me, the necessity of live bait vests on and around whitewater by all rescue responders. It's an extra $40 on a vest.


Caribiners should always - and by always I mean permanently tied - to the end of all rescue rope, ready to be clipped in an emergency. 

Although Mr. Jenkins acted amazingly selfless - a fast clip to a live bait vest would have made his swim 100 times less dangerous had he become entrapped. 

Never live bait swim alone. It not only adds to potential victims, but it compounds a rescue scenario complexity and potentially endangers more rescuers. 

Both rescuer and victim are incredibly lucky that log came loose.


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## jonseim (May 27, 2006)

Caribiners should always - and by always I mean permanently tied - to the end of all rescue rope, ready to be clipped in an emergency. 



This is the exact opposite of what I have been taught and was recently refreshed on a swift water rescue course. All the lines are clean, takes a second to tie an 8 to clip to. 
On the down side of a biner at the end, if it is making its way down the river, it sinks and become entrapped. A clean end line is much less likely to do that. Having a rope entrapped in the river is dangerous.

As my instructors repeated, a line in the water is nothing more than a serpent looking to do harm! 
My lines are clean, no knots, no biners on the ends or the bag.


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## 59330 (May 4, 2017)

jonseim said:


> Caribiners should always - and by always I mean permanently tied - to the end of all rescue rope, ready to be clipped in an emergency.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I never mentioned floating a rope to a victim? So I'm not sure what the clean end theory is applicable here? But even in a rope float situation to a victim, sans a rescuer there to receive the rope, you would never float a clean rope end. Can your victim tie knots? When you deploy a rope bag, you deploy the bag, not the rope end. Not sure how a biner ended rope would end in the water unless you failed to clip it before your ran out of rope? My rope bags contain a clipped biner inside the bag 

My experience:

1. People do not think clearly in an life threatening emergency. (If you tie figure eights on a bight in your sleep, then you probably will be successful. Is your rope ready for someone who does not know how?) 

2 Taking a "second" to tie a figure eight actually takes 3-4 seconds for a competent knot person in a life threatening emergency. How long does it take the guy who is stuck on the side of the river you cannot get to? Is there time for error? Do you expect him to tie the knot?

3. In life threatening emergencies we default to our well rehearsed exercise. 
....and not everyone is well rehearsed. It's better in my experience to be set up for dummies than to expect your rescue team to be a well oiled and well rehearsed machine. If they are, then its a bonus. 

3. What is "taught" in emergency preparedness (and I've taken a lot of different classes on this subject) is almost never duplicated in real life. 

In theory a clean line sounds nice - and in a perfect world I would totally agree with your instructor. But instructors love to analyze every angle without really having applied the knowledge. "I remember one time this biner got stuck in a rock under water and the victim almost died."


Counting on the fact that everyone around you is very proficient at knot tying can be a catastrophic mistake when seconds count. 

Clipping a biner to the live bait swimmer would have been prudent had someone tossed him a rope bag. He even threw his hands up before he jumped like "well I guess there's nothing else to do." And he's brave as hell but lucky. 

I've found biners to be relatively fast and idiot proof.


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