To Help a local First Nation Man from Drowning.
Athabasca River, Canada
Day 8 – Saturday 14th June 2008
Tony and I were camped in the town of Athabasca on our way to the Arctic Ocean. It was one of the rare times in the 4000 km journey that we would be camped in civilisation. Being in the north the nights never really got dark, which meant the
locals were up late so making it a noisy night. By early morning the traffic was noisier still.
As I pottered around camp in the early hours a fisherman came rushing over to me and said there was someone in the water drowning and he needed a rope to get him out. The fisherman was a rough sleeper and drinker so I wasn’t sure if he was bluffing. I grabbed my throw bag from the back of
the canoe and hurried over to the deep sided creek. Low and behold it was a First Nation man who we had asked the whereabouts of the campsite the previous day. He was in the murky water up to his neck and in serious trouble. All the grass and shrubs that he had been trying to use to pull himself back up the bank were floating in the water with him. He was drunk and who knows how long he had been in the water.
The fisherman who fetched me climbed down the bank, whilst I held the rope and he tried desperately to get the rope around the first nation man in the water, (whose name we found out later was Richard). So now Richard was in the water with a rope under his arms tied by a slip knot (probably not the best knot), but the easiest knot for the fisherman to tie. We tried pulling, but Richard was so drunk, so cold and so out of it that he just couldn’t help
himself. With every tug he just fell over. We encouraged him to try and help himself, but he had no strength and we didn’t have enough might to move him. Another chap, who was camped nearby heard the commotion, so he got himself out of bed to help.
We had to try something else so I slid down the bank, grabbed Richard’s arm and the fisherman held mine. We pulled, but just as you see in
the movies, Richard slipped from my grasp and fell back into the water again. With his head back above water he kept saying ”please help me, please help me”. The fisherman who had a mobile phone then called 911.
Even with three of us trying to get him out, we were getting nowhere and I could see I had no choice, but to get in the water behind him and try to steady him and
push him up. I stripped off to my underpants and lowered myself down the slippery bank.
I managed to position myself in the water behind Richard and wrap my legs around his body as I held onto a rope that was tied to the picnic table to stop me from falling back. The other two men pulled on the rope that was around Richard’s body. With both guys pulling in unison and with me pushing
from behind we were able to slowly inch him up the bank. We would gain a few inches and then Richard would fall over and we would be back in the water. I would then get him to his feet and try again. He was so limp his body was dead weight.
Eventually we managed to ease Richard up out of the water and to the top of the steep bank. I was now wet, cold and covered in mud and
parading around in my underpants, but Richard was in an even worse state than me. When we had him on flat ground, he was so heavy, that even the three of us could hardly move him. At last we managed to sit him down on a bench, three metres from the river, but moments later he tried to get up and his legs gave way and he went head first into the bbq plate and ring. So now Richard was not only hypothermic, but he also had a cut lip and blood was running down his face.
The police or ambulance still hadn’t arrived and Richard was shivering excessively. We asked a First Nation guy in the tent nearby if Richard was his mate, but he told us he didn’t know him and he wasn’t any friend of his, though we knew he was. We asked Richard if he had any family or friends and he mumbled he had no one.
Richard was getting colder. I was still in my underpants and getting colder too. Fortunately the ambulance came speedily into the park followed by the police. The ambulance drivers had blankets to help warm him. Although Richard who was a First Nation drunk, the ambulance men treated him with respect, and did everything they could to make him comfortable, which was good to see.
How long he had been in the water we didn‘t know, but I suspect a long time. He was lucky not to have drowned. There were a dozen or so beer cans under the bench that he was fishing from and several pieces of his clothing were in the water and other clothing on the bank.
Just as Richard was tucked away in the ambulance,
the Fire Brigade arrived. The police took a few notes from me and then I made a hasty exit to have a shower to warm up and wash off all the mud that was up to my waist.
When I came out of the shower, Tony who was in town at the time, and knew nothing of the rescue arrived back at camp. I was ready to eat so we walked over to the hotel and ate a huge breakfast of hash browns, two
eggs on an English muffin and three coffees. Just what I needed after my unplanned early morning dip!
We visited the hardware store before going back to camp to begin the ritual of packing. Once packed, we started carrying our gear over to the river’s edge and loaded the canoe. We posed for the photos before pushing the heavy canoe into the water and paddling away by
1.00pm.
