Avoiding Foot Entrapment in White Water

Video Transcript

"The final use of a wade is one that's not something we really want to consider too much and it is definitely a risky operation. If someone's foot entrapped out in the river, the likelihood of that water being shallow enough for you to be able to wade either in a wedge or by yourself us a possibility. If you're dealing with small numbers in the group and you don't have the option of setting up a large complicated rope system to get the person who's foot entrapped out of the river, then wading out to them is something you can think about. If you're by yourself, with your paddle, wade out on the downstream side of them, and get into the eddy caused by that person who's foot entrapped. At this point you then may be able to crouch down, get them by the PFD and pull them up and at least hold their head out of the water. This is something that's gonna not be able to be held for very long cause you're going to get tired, and if they're fully unconscious they're not going to be able to help you out at all. However, if they are conscious, they're probably going to be panicking and so it's a situation that you don't want to put yourself into lightly. They are going to try and just climb on top of you and push you down whether they mean to or not. If you have a wedge wade you can wade out above them or a circle wade and create an eddy to relax some of that flow that's coming down on the person that's foot entrapped. And that will be able to alleviate some of that pressure. So the people at the back of the wedge or the end of the circle are able to reach down and pull the person out of the foot entrapment."