The Rescue

I am finally finding a quiet moment to sit down and write this story.  I hope I can recapture the emotion from last week, but I am afraid doing so is going to be a difficult task.  Nevertheless, I am going to give it my best shot. 

A little over a week ago I saved a woman from drowning on the Potomac River.  Perhaps I should correct myself in laying claim to being in control of the event of saving this woman, but in the common vernacular it was in fact me who paddled out into the water to save her.  I am simply not so sure I was working alone.

It was Friday.  I left school on a warm, sunny afternoon.  I jumped in my truck and headed to the Falls to unwind with some afternoon laps.  I could not stop thinking about something I caught on television the night before, a documentary about a spiritual healer in Brazil.  As strange as it sounds, after I watched the film I was markedly calm.  I went to sleep.  When I woke up the feeling remained.     

I arrived at the river.  The parking lot was mostly empty.  A couple strolled the towpath. A woman walked her dog.  The temperature was above average for the time of year, but it was an otherwise normal afternoon.  I crossed the canal and headed down the path to the river.  The water level was high. The river had been low for months.  It was the first time I saw it with real water in it for quite a while.  I decided to walk around 'Grace', and ran one lap on the 'Fingers'.  I paddled down through O'Deck.  I surfed the wave for a bit, but was not really in the mood.  I really just wanted to be outside and enjoy the afternoon.  I paddled down to the 'Fishladder' to take out, but decided to float down through 'Rocky Island Waves'.  As I paddled downstream, I noticed a woman crouched by the side of the river in a small pothole.  I noted she was pretty close to the water, it did not seem too unsual. 

I looked up at Rocky Island.  The sky was bright blue and it was warm.  I knew there were not too many warm days left in the season, so I hopped out of my boat and climbed the cliff to sit in the 'King's Chairs'.  The chairs are natural stone formations that look like someone took a huge ice cream scoop and scooped out a chunk of rock to make a  smooth stone lounger.  It was the perfect spot for a warm sunny November afternoon. 

I was sitting for a while.  I was thinking about the film I watched the night before, God, being in the moment, and a smathering of other utterly idealistic notions for which my mind is all too commonly attuned.  I decided to close my eyes and try to clear my mind of any extraneous thoughts.  I placed my hands on the rock, and started breathing in and out very slowly.

Suddenly, I opened my eyes.  I am not sure why I opened them at that moment, and I am not sure for how long I had them closed.  I scanned the river.  Immediately I noticed the pink hat bobbing up and down through 'Rocky Island Waves'. 

I yelled out.  I was too far away.  No response.  I ran quickly.  I down climbed.  Loose rock slid as I scrambled down the vertical pitch.  My boat sat in the shadows.  I jumped in and strapped my helmet.  No time to pull my skirt.  My arms stroked voraciously at the clear crystalline water.  My body tired. I mumbled words of encouragement under my breath to keep going.  Finally, I reached her. 

'Are you alright?'  She looked up with a milky white stare. 

'I'm fine'.  I was confused.  The water was freezing.  She was not flailing around.  She was drifiting in the current like a floating stone.  She was anything but fine.  Several hundred more yards in the main current and she was going to float straight to the bottom.  This stretch of river sees an average of six or seven deaths per year.  This year, the park service had already seen eight.  Nine was not an option.

'Do you want me to tow you to shore?'  The answer seemed obvious, but I awaited her response anxiously. 

'Yes'.  I pulled hard.  We made it to the rocky bank in the nick of time.  There was no one else on the water.  There were no hikers.  There were no climbers.  The gorge was empty.  I took off my dry top and gave her my t-shirt.  She pulled off her wet top.  I stared up at the cliff face.  We were not in a good spot.  The only way out was up.  We had to get back to her car as quickly as possible.  Hypothermia can set in quickly.  I was thankful we were not miles from help, but we still had to negotiate the cliff. 

I asked her name, and a few other basic medical questions.  I explained I would scout a route for us to make it up and out.  I looked carefully, trying to find the easiest way up.  After a few moments I was satisfied, and we proceeded to climb.  There were a few places where exposure was a big risk.  One misplaced step and we could both wind up in the river, or worse breaking our fall on a rock ledge fifty feet below.  I spotted her, braced her, gave her hand holds, and hoisted her to the top.  It was a relief when we were off the rock face. 

She was in relatively good spirits.  Cold, but not too distraught.  The hike out was short.  After ten minutes the trail came to an end and we were near the parking lot.  I noticed the park police car, but there was no ranger.  I figured it was a good idea to report the incident if someone was around, but it was most important to get her a change of clothes and into a warm vehicle.  There were two kayakers in the lot changing after their surf session at O-Deck.  She changed her clothes.

I was cold.  We hopped in her car.  She blasted the heat.  I felt there was something more to the situation, but I was not sure what.  I told her there was no good reason for me to be sitting on Rocky Island that afternoon.  There was no good reason I opened my eyes to see her hat at that moment. 

She asked if I believed in God.  I said yes.  I was sitting on that rock for a reason.  She said she was glad I rescued her, because she was beginning to feel forsaken by God. 

I asked her why she felt that way. 

'My life has been a lot of pain.'

'Why is that?,' I replied.  She responded with a long list of abuses, broken relationships, and recent misfortunes.  She recently lost her job and was working as a cashier at McDonald's to make ends meet.  She said she had no friends, and asked if I had a lot of friends.  I told her I was lucky to have some good ones. 

She leaned her head on my shoulder.  The bright lights shone through the car window.  It was the park police.  I hopped out and met the officer halfway. 

'Is that your boat?,' he asked.  I told him it was.  On our way out of the gorge, he was hiking in to do his nightly rounds.  He was making sure there was nothing unsual going on in the park at dusk.  He noticed my boat, and assumed an accident had taken place.  He called in the park helicopter to do a search.  They were looking for me. 

There was no way I could have known.  I explained what happened.  He walked up to the car and questioned her.  I sat in his police car, and cranked upt the heat. 

He came back and was about to back up his car.  I told him he may want to make sure she leaves the park.  He asked what my intuition was.  I told him I was not exactly sure, but it was possible she did not just trip and fall. 

He asked her as politely as he could if she had thrown hersel f in the water.  When she responded no, all he could do was let her go.  I got out of the squad car.  I walked up to her and gave her a hug goodbye. 

'Take care of yourself,' I said.  I thought to say 'I love you' for some strange reason, but held back.  She understood. 

The officer drove me back to my truck on the Maryland side.  It took nearly an hour to make it there with Friday night traffic.  I shook his hand and bid him a good night. 

'It was good thing you did tonight,' he said.

I closed the car door. 

I am not sure I will ever by able to explain that evening, but I do know the entire event was not a coincidence.  I will never know if she threw herself in the water.  I am not so sure she did.  Maybe it was more like she was 'pulled' in by circumstances outside of her control.  Perhaps the circumstances of her life led her to the edge of the river in the strangely cushioned depths of an ancient stone pothole to contemplate the meaning of it all.  Perhaps she arrived at the river's edge in the same way as I arrived at the top of the rock, likely contemplating the same questions. 

There are things we cannot see.  There are things that happen that are far outside of our control. 

The river is wide.  The river is deep.  It is shallow.  It is rocky.  It flows in straight shots.  It meanders back upon itself at the strangest of times, but all the while it is creeping ever forward.  There are a million ways to be dashed to bits. 

That afternoon I felt light in the deepest of my bones. 

We are not foresaken.