Team Effort

KERSPLASHY! I called out to my hiking buddies, "Was that MEANT to happen???" The answer I got, "I don't think so." A man with twin sons capsized. One boy began to swim off. The father became tired trying to get him back to the sinking boat. We called from shore, offering help. He refused saying everything was "fine." Then he yelled, "Hey! My legs are cramping up out here!" He was the only one NOT wearing his personal flotation device.




To the rescue! The guy in front had never paddled a boat before. These two looked like old crew buddies from college--totally smooth, totally skilled, totally focused and efficient. Bless them! Why was there an empty boat sitting on the shore of the lake? We don't know. Someone was there when the family left it. As they packed up, one of the children asked, "Dad? What about the boat?" And the mystery dad said, "We'll leave it for now. No one will take it." If there had been no boat there or if the boat would have had a hole in it, the day could have turned out quite differently.




Mama is in black. Lady in red is the wife of one of the oarsmen. She told us that little kids in the water needing help were motivating to her husband as their nephew had recently died in a family recreational outing.




Safe return of twin five year old boys. Before they brought the boys to shore, they paddled around to fish the daddy's PFD out of the water and deliver it to him in all his exhaustion. Their mama was one cool-headed chick! Makes me wonder if she let her husband have it when they got home. Makes me wonder if he's pulled at least a hundred other stunts like this one. Her first comment was that she was glad she didn't go out on the water with them because then the tipping of the boat would have been HER fault! Her second comment was that one of the boys really didn't want to go because he was scared. "Now he's REALLY not going to want to go!"




She waited for a better moment to tell the daddy that he should figure out his pants.




Nurse P is treating for shock and possible hypothermia. Since I wasn't needed for my first aid and CPR skills, I kept documenting with the camera.




And here they are with the capsized canoe (whatever the proper term is for this particular model of watercraft)--afloat! The guy with his back to us was pushing his wife around the lake in her wheelchair. He was the one who told the other two guys how to empty the boat and flip it over. Genius!




We told the whole story to Grandpa when we got back to the van. His daughter, my mother-in-law, is always helping people who are lying on the floor in the back of the airplane and stuff like that. When he heard the canoe capsized just as we walked by, Grandpa said, "We'll have to quit bringing her."