[Ed. note - This is an adaptation of a blog post by former SBSAR member, Liz Blakeley, who is currently serving as a park ranger in Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Skagway, AK].
It all started as a very nice Tuesday in town. I went on walking tours at the park to learn a little bit more about the history and had a really quiet, but productive day. That afternoon, one of my coworkers was hiking out from our ranger station and sometimes rangers from town come out and give us a ride across the river in a raft to cut the last 1.6 miles off of the trail. We decided we'd go get her from the trail, and then work on our boat handling skills on the way out (we just completed a swift water course last week).
We picked up my coworker and headed down the river to let her practice handling the boat because she didn't get to go to swift water training. One of the law enforcement rangers sat across from her so he could take over, if necessary, and help her steer. We rafted most of the river without incident and it was in the next to last bend when we ran into some issues. We saw the debris in the river coming up so we started to turn away, but it really didn't seem like big stuff so we weren't all that concerned about it. Our coworker was unable to steer the boat away from the debris, so at the last second, the law enforcement ranger took over and tried to spin us away from the danger. Unfortunately, it was too late.
What appeared to be a small stick that was just above the water line had hit our boat at just the right angle and we ended up caught in the lacing of the bottom of our boat. (We have a self-bailing raft and the floor is essentially tied on to the rest of the raft). We spent about 15 minutes bouncing the boat, pushing on the debris, and trying to make the boat move, but it quickly became clear that we weren't going anywhere. This is when all 4 of us, who have all worked extensively with search and rescue, began to face one our biggest fears head-on. We were going to have to call for help.
After you've worked in the search and rescue field for a while, many people start to develop "Rescuer Syndrome" where you will do anything to avoid calling your coworkers for help. We promise ourselves we'll never become a victim. This issue has actually contributed to the death of several rescuers over time, and I've been lectured on more than one occasion about the implications of this. Well, it turns out I've got a little case of "Rescuer's Syndrome".
We were coming up with elaborate scenarios where one of us goes swimming in 38 degree glacial run-off water and pulls the boat free, or lasso a stick and pull ourselves off that way. Each scenario was as bad an idea as the next.
We had more debris below us, so if someone did go for a swim, they'd be apt to become hypothermic fairly quickly and, secondly, they might get caught on that debris, which is a really good way to die in a river.
Luckily one of the law enforcement rangers was big enough to step back from the situation and recognize that at this point we were all dry, fairly safe so he made the decision to call for help. He caught some flack for it at the time, but when it comes down to it, it was absolutely the right thing to do.
So I really came to appreciate how long it seems it takes help to come after you've made the call when you're sitting on a river wearing chacos in Alaska. They responded incredibly quickly, but it still seemed like FOREVER. We had plenty of time to plan the funerals of our professional careers, plan on where we could move to so we could escape the morning gossip the next day in a town of 600, have some good laughs about how ridiculous this whole situation was and then realize again that we were really in trouble. Eventually, help arrived.
We saw the raft with the 3 rescuers show up and things started to look up. Fun fact: the best part about all of this is that our primary rescuer was our swift water instructor. All four of us jumped free into the rescuers' raft and were then brought to the gravel bar in the middle of the river. That's when the real work started. We thought that the boat would break free the second it was unweighted, but no such luck. We rigged a 9:1 mechanical advantage system and had 7 people pulling on it and the boat still wouldn't break free. It turns out we did a really good job of getting the boat stuck.
Eventually we got the boat out and successfully completed the river. It turns out the guys from the fire department who we called didn't even put a page out on the radio and came on their own time to help us out and to help us save face. We really appreciated that. In a town of 600, news travels fast.
The experience definitely helped put our egos in check and remind us that we, too, are vulnerable even though we're usually on the other end of the rope. This was honestly a freak accident and we still don't know how we got ourselves so stuck. We bounce off of debris like that all of the time, and never have had a problem before. We've decided that we're going to chalk this up to experience and move on with our lives and hopefully we can go to the coffee shop sometime in the future without being met with, "Hey, aren't you that little red-headed ranger who had to get rescued?"