Drama in Real Life

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On Saturday, we decided a good way to kill time before the Incan Trail would be to raft through a Class IV section of the mighty Urubamba River. Most of us had prior rafting experience, so no one was really concerned about falling out. If you fall out, you’re in the water for at most a few seconds then they pull you back out. Worse case scenario, you ride out the rapids for a few more seconds then get scooped up in slower waters. On our bus ride to the starting point, we stopped over a canyon and the guide pointed to the Class IV in the river bend, mentioning there was a chance that we might flip. We all salivated at the idea.

The day started out as well as could be expected. When we went over rapids and waves splashed into our raft, the water was freezing cold- but bearable through our wetsuits. As we entered the expert section of the river, we were ready for some more action. Several times that day the guide had pulled our raft aside and run ahead to check to see the status of the rapids. The fact that we had proceeded led most of us to believe the rapids were navigable. As we approached the last 300 meter stretch of Class IV rapids, the guide suddenly changed his mind and decided that our current weight distribution wouldn’t be able to keep the raft afloat. In the middle of the river, with the river carrying us swiftly towards the start of the rapids, he had us all stand up and switch places. In the confusion, he completely lost sight of how quickly the rapids were approaching. At the exact instant we all sat down again, the rapids picked up our raft like a paper airplane, turned it upside down and spilled us into the frigid, thunderous river.

For the first few seconds, I was still clutching my plastic oar, rationalizing that I would soon be pulled back on the raft and I didn’t want to be the dude who lost his oar in the river. I mean, falling out rafting is no big deal (in Costa Rica we actually jumped out of the raft on purpose). But I began to realize from the force of the river that things were more serious than I thought. As I saw the raft fly away downstream with no one in it and eight helpless people scattered throughout the river, I realized I was in for a fight. It’s hard to put into words what it felt like letting go of that oar, because holding onto it meant you knew you were going to be fine, you’d need the oar again, it’d all be over soon. Relaxing my grip and feeling the river tear the oar away meant having to embrace the possibility that everything actually might not be fine at all.

Being splashed with water was uncomfortable- being submerged in it was exponentially worse. The water was so cold that it cut right through our wetsuits like a knife. My entire body instantly tightened in reaction to the water, which, when combined with the already thin air at 8000 feet over sea level and the crushing water pressure, made it nearly impossible to breathe even in the few split seconds my head was above water.

Most of the river was a blur and I don’t remember thinking anything coherently, but a rough approximation of what was going through my mind was -don’t drift to the shore, you’ll break your legs on the rocks, stay in the middle, keep your head above water, breathe, you’ll be fine. At this point in time my major concerns were getting hypothermia (my whole body was going numb from the cold) and broken bones. Drowning hadn’t seriously entered my mind yet.

Without our lifejackets, it would’ve been over in a matter of seconds. I say that because the water was so powerful that it grabbed and held us underwater and the life jackets could only manage to bring us to the surface for a quick gasp once every few seconds or so. I began to realize that I hadn’t been able to keep my head above water long enough to get enough oxygen. Because I was flailing my arms and legs wildly trying to tread water, I began hyperventilating and at this point I realized I was in serious trouble. But there was literally nothing I could do. The waves kept on pounding and pounding and pounding, and half the time our heads were above water we were choking down rancid, muddy river water instead of air. We were completely at the mercy of the river, tossing and dragging us around like rag dolls.

At one point I surfaced and saw the raft careening haphazardly next to me. I flung myself towards it and grabbed onto the rope, thinking that I’d be okay as long as I held on. But the relief was short-lived. I couldn’t climb back in (I saw the guide helplessly clinging to the raft as well) and I still couldn’t breathe. I was getting weaker and weaker by the second, and I asked myself mentally how much longer I could keep this up for. Not long. Either the raft flipped again or I lost my grip, but somehow I found myself swept underneath the raft- the absolute worst place to be- and at that point I wasn’t thinking or feeling anything; it was more like I was a detached observer thinking “this is it.” No sadness, regret, flashing memories before my eyes, no relief from the idea that I’d be seeing God soon. Just a cold, heartless “this is it.” And then suddenly, my body stopped moving. I felt the impact rocket through my helmet before I realized the rapids had slammed my head into a gigantic rock. There was no pain. I surfaced again and saw our guide pulling himself onto a rock and I quite ungraciously threw myself in his direction. I felt him pull me out of the river just enough so it wouldn’t snatch me back in.

For the first few minutes I just held on to that rock with all my strength, its jagged ridges biting into my face, half my body still in the freezing, tugging water. I was so tired I couldn’t move my legs or pull myself any higher. My heart was pounding out an impossibly fast snare roll and I drew my breaths in shallow machine-gun gasps. I was gagging strings of phlegm from my mouth and nose onto the rock, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t believe I was alive. The only thought that ran through my head other than that was there’s no way everyone made it. Terribly. Over and over and over again.

Somewhere, I heard my friend's voice faintly over the roaring of the rapids. The river had randomly swept us into the same big rock. The guide pulled her out and stared dumbfounded at us for a second before climbing into the raft and setting off to look for the others. I didn’t see him go but my friend said the sight of him heading down the river, alone in the raft with no paddles, was one of the loneliest images she’d ever seen.

My heart hadn’t slowed a notch. I tried to stand up but jackhammers were going off in my skull. I thought for sure I had a concussion. My hands and fingers were an unnatural shade of purple and I was shivering uncontrollably- either from cold or from shock. I had to hug my friend for about ten minutes before I stopped shaking. Finally, I was able to stand and look around. We couldn’t see a soul from where we were stranded.

Presently, two more rafts passed us, passengers hooting and hollering without batting an eye at us. A woman fell out of one but she was quickly scooped back into the raft and they proceeded down the rapid without incident. I stared at them as they passed just a few meters away and realized the distance between us was much greater. They had no idea, probably will never know, just how dangerous the river was. We were sitting in shock on that rock miles away in a different world.

After that, it was twenty more minutes before the guide came back with the unbelievable news that everyone was okay. Three had landed on another rock downstream and two were rescued by the safety kayak (although I have to say 2 out of 7 for the safety kayak is a pretty pitiful percentage).

Then came the rescue. The raft was long gone downstream. Even if there was a raft nearby, there was no chance in hell that I’d get back in the water. Unfortunately that put us in a bit of a bind because we had capsized in the middle of a 250 foot-deep canyon, meaning we’d have to climb 250 feet straight up to get to the highway where the van was waiting for us. At first I tried to use big stones for my hand holds, but most of them just popped right out of the dirt and I had to watch sullenly as they tumbled precipitously down the canyon wall and plopped into the water. Eventually I learned that there were a few types of plants whose roots were deep enough to withstand me grabbing them to pull myself up (I learned which plants worked and which ones didn’t after a series of hilariously near-fatal mishaps). Eventually it became so steep that we couldn’t climb any higher on our own. At that point, the guides on the highway threw ropes down to us, which we tied around our waists and then basically rappelled up the remainder of the canyon wall. The whole process was surreal. I couldn’t process it. We took a quick picture from the highway and I have the most clueless, stupid grin on my face. I was giggling at one point, from the sheer ridiculousness of one impossible fact: we were alive. As long as it seemed going through it, I thought there was no way we were in the water longer than thirty seconds or so. They told us we had been in the river for three minutes.

We spent much of the night getting sick from the water and recounting our experience. As the days went by, it became easier for us to rationalize our experience. People fall in all the time, no one ever really dies, sometimes people break a bone or two, we all got out unscathed so we couldn’t have been in that much danger. It was a traumatic chapter in our lives, but we began to compartmentalize it and move on....





...Five days later, on the same stretch of rapids, in eerily similar circumstances, a raft carrying five people capsized in the Urubamba. Two of them drowned.

That statement, that sentence is equally impossible to process as our rescue was. On Wednesday, another two lives were claimed. The government has since shut down that section of the river.

To say it was a miracle that we all survived is the closest word I can use. Yet to say it was a miracle we survived seems to put an artificial premium on our lives over the ones who were lost. As if there was something special about us, something worth choosing us over them. But of course, there isn't. So why didn’t they get a miracle too? Why was such an act of grace, so undeserved, reserved for us? Or was it just dumb luck- an extraordinary combination of unlikely circumstances?

It's impossible to fathom. The only question that I can answer is, having been extended grace, how then shall I respond?


*All photos courtesy Edwin Woo

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