How to Rescue a Canoeist in Whitewater Rapids

Video Transcript

"One of the main reasons people paddle in groups is so that they can support each other on the river and help each other if one, one of them gets into trouble. When you’re rescuing another canoeist, there is a number of things to keep in mind, but the number one thing to keep in mind is the priority, who’s most important and despite what you might think initially, the most important person to keep in mind is yourself. Um, the other canoeist is important of course and you want to make sure you rescue them if you can, but if you’re not going to be able to do and keep yourself above water, then, uh, you need to, you need to let it go and let someone do it who can or let that canoeist do for themselves as well as they can, uh, until you get to a place where you can help them. Trying to help somebody in a situation where you can’t and where those, your skill levels aren’t up to it can cause more problems and ultimately can cause much, much great difficultly than staying on the sidelines and waiting it out. When you rescue another canoeist the second priority is the other people who are not victims right now, who are not swimming. You want to make sure that they’re okay, so in the case of a group where you have less experienced paddlers and more experienced paddlers it’s a good idea to keep the less experienced paddlers in the eddies and safe and not going out and helping with the rescue unless the rescue is in water that’s well within their abilities. Then the more experienced paddlers can go out, deal with the rescue and know that they’re not going to have two or three other rescues to perform at the same time. The final priority is the paddler himself, and the other paddler, at that point you want to make sure that they’re okay first. Of course the very, very last priority of all is the equipment, the boat and the gear and that doesn’t matter. You know, even if you’re on a multi-day trip, you’ve still got to get the person back before the boat and the gear make any difference whatsoever. So when you have another paddler and he’s in water, maybe difficult to swim in, there are a couple of options, you can get the other paddler on your stern, they can grab onto your stern grab loop and you can uh, help pull them to shore, you can encourage them to swim and keep them away from your boat, it’s important to tell them whether it’s okay to grab onto your boat or not. You certainly don’t want them grabbing onto your boat in the middle here, where they easily flip you, one end or the other is much better. And if everything is going well you can grip, you can have the person grab onto your stern with one hand, with the other hand they can hold their boat or their paddle and you can paddle them on over to shore and that’s the idea, that’s the way it works perfectly. Of course if you have two or three boats to help out, one other boat can maybe push their boat and help bump it over to shore and everything works out well. So, work together, make sure you keep the priorities in mind; yourself, the other paddlers who are okay, and finally the swimmer and last of all, the boat and the gear."