Dressing In Layers For Kayak River Rescues

Video Transcript

"Dressing appropriately for a rescue situation or the potential thereof is extremely important. We all remember that you want to dress warmly for the river but often forget that you want to dress for being in the river for a long time if a rescue time. You could be there or 20 minutes supporting someone while you try to extract them or dealing with an unconscious person on the side of the bank. When you dress for this, layer appropriately and starting off with your legs you can use fleece pants which provide a lot of warmth. However when they get wet, will soak up quite a bit of water. However, very comfortable and very warm. Over the top of this, you can wear splash pants or a dry top or dry suit and this will protect you from the wind and will also provide quite a lot of abrasion resistance if you happen to fall. They don't however provide much padding. For the padding on your legs, wet suits may not be the most comfortable but they provide a good amount of Neoprene to stop you from hitting those rocks and a good amount of padding on your knee as well in case you fall while you are moving quickly. Moving up to the torso you can use a variety of fleece and always using synthetic materials, you want to make sure you are well protected from the elements. Often one thin rash guard layer combined with a thicker fleece layer will give you a lot of protection from the cold and keep you warm. Put this under a dry top with Latex gaskets on the neck and on the wrist you will be very well protected from the cold and you are going to keep yourself warm when you really need to. "