The Art and Agony of a Stone Mason

 

The Art and Agony of a Stone Mason

“He has worked by hand with stones that weigh more than 9,500 pounds, using tools such as sleds, log rollers, block and tackle, levers and fulcrums. With machinery, he has set stones in excess of 15,000 pounds.”

On August 18th, on the Upper Ocoee, Brooks Burleson edged his canoe to clear a swirly eddy line. He leaned out for a strong forward stroke. He planted his blade forcefully and felt no resistance.  A vortex of water had swallowed his paddle.

A Carolina Paddler article

By Alton Chewning

Part One:  The Agony

-Brooks Burleson has been paddling a long time. He paddles an open canoe, using a single blade paddle. After a lull in paddling hard rivers, Brooks decided to jump back into the fray. An opportunity came when Tropical Storm Fred dumped water over the central Piedmont.

Over the course of a week, Brooks paddled the most difficult sections the NC Triangle has to offer, all at very high levels:  The Upper Rocky, the Lower Haw, Cedar Falls, the Little and New Hope Creek. He was feeling good and paddling well.  Then, an old friend, Steve Groezinger called with a proposal.

Steve and Brooks used to be part of an afterwork circle of hardcore paddlers. They would join other devil-may-care paddlers like Gary Cousino, Bob Miller, Jim Clarke, Chris Hull and others.  William Nealy was sometimes part of the gang.  Brooks went so far as to build a “hidden” layover spot on the Middle Haw, Squaw Valley.  An oasis with simple tables, a place to cook oysters and drink beer.

Time had passed and Steve and Brooks didn’t see each other as much.  Steve suggested they drive up to Tennessee and spend a weekend on the Ocoee. Brooks shrugged, “I told him I hadn’t been on the Ocoee for over twenty years.  Last time I was there I got hurt, my only serious injury.”

Back in the 90’s Brooks was paddling everything within driving distance.  The Ocoee was a regular destination, but he and friends tired of bumping with the rafts.  “We’d be there on weekends and the raft traffic was terrible. I almost drowned stuck underneath a raft. Floating up under it. It’s like an inverted bowl and there is nothing to grab hold of. I had some bad experiences.”

Now Groetzinger was proposing they go to Ocoee, hit the Middle. It would be fun and a chance to catch up.  Having exhausted all the big water paddling the Piedmont had to offer, Brooks was eager to get on something meaty, maybe some Class IV, too.

The Middle

Zach LeClerc grew up in Charleston, SC.  He was a water creature from early on, spending lots of time swimming and surfing. Zach moved to Chattanooga, TN, to attend nursing school.  He had many opportunities to indulge his other hobbies–mountain biking and climbing, but the weather was hot. He needed a water sport and whitewater kayaking was the answer.  His ease in the water showed and he took to kayaking quickly, becoming a regular on the Middle Ocoee.

Over the summer, Zach took a job at a camp in Oregon. He returned to Chattanooga on August 16th and was itching to hit the Middle the next day.  His normal routine was to go alone to the river and meet up with someone in the parking lot or the staging eddy below Grumpy’s rapid. While warming up at the eddy, Zach saw a guy with the same model of kayak as he had. The guy was Steve Groetzinger. A conversation ensued and Brooks, Steve and Zach formed a team.

Their team worked well.  All were strong paddlers, Brooks perhaps the best. Steve observed, “I hadn’t seen him paddle that well before.”  Zach said, “Brooks was paddling an open boat.  A canoe you kneel in.  He was tearing it up.”  Zach was impressed with Brook’s attention to detail; his paddling was calculated and precise and he was strong, really strong. Most of all, Brooks appreciated being in a special place in nature.

They stopped at Goforth Creek and shared sandwiches.  Brooks recalled back in the 90’s the Ocoee was frequently orange from the copper mining upstream. Now the water was clear.

At the end of the run, Brooks dived right into the infamous wave, Hell Hole. “I’ve never been timid with paddling. I take chances. I’m not afraid to get in a big hole or hydraulic.”  Zach and Steve, grinned. Zach: “Brooks surfed Hell Hole. He got a spin in Hell Hole, in an open boat.  Super cool!” Steve: “The other boaters were cheering!”

A sudden storm sent the assembled paddlers under the bridge, but their enthusiasm wasn’t dampened. Steve: “What a great day that was.”  Zach, “An epic day.”  Brooks shared, “I’m typically introverted. But I enjoy the culture, the camaraderie of the river. We were up under the bridge at Hell Hole with a lightning storm and a downpour and we were having the time of our lives.  Nobody was fazed by it. It could have been a bomb going off and these folks were still enjoying it.”

The team had dinner that night at the aptly named Tres Hermanos. Over tacos, Steve said, “I heard the Upper is running.” So, they made plans to hit the Upper the next day.  Steve had done it years before.  Zach had never done it.  Brooks had last paddled it in 1996. Their first day had been good; they were excited for what tomorrow could bring.

The Upper

The next day they met at the Middle parking lot and headed for the Olympic section of the Upper. In 1996 the Upper Ocoee was significantly modified, reducing the width of the channel from 200ft. to 75ft., to speed up the current and make it suitable for slalom competitions. The Ocoee was the first natural river to be used in the modern Olympic slalom era.  Although the Olympic Whitewater Center burned in 2022, the trio was still excited to see the rapids there. Steve had been there during the Olympic build-up and remembered where the stands and gates were located.  The group cast a wide eye on Humongous, the biggest rapid on the Upper and pronounced it doable. They loaded up and set off, each with their own vision of the Upper Ocoee.

Brooks was last here with Cathy Kuyper, a regular in the boating community. They were running the Upper in flood waters. Brooks slammed into a floating log. He tried to pull free from the log, but it kept spinning, trapping him under and against it.  He finally tore away but with a herniated disk, his first significant paddling injury.

The team agreed it would be a good idea to follow the lead of someone familiar with the run. The Upper Ocoee is dewatered much of the time, allowing small trees to flourish and debris to gather.  Small rocks aren’t subjected to continuous force from powerful water, so they are not shaped into regular formations on the sides of channels. Zach described it, “The Upper is a lot of boogie water, not as continuous as the Middle.  Long Class I or II boogie water sections, interspersed with a few big rapids.”

LongBoater

Zach was first in the water and started loosening. Another paddler arrived with a blue longboat and wearing a buttoned-down formal dress shirt.  Zach said, “I got a kick out of it.”  Brooks noticed other things. The guy was maybe in his mid-40’s and he had tattoos on both forearms – circles, the tight spirals often seen in Native American art.  Had a long boat, the type Green racers use. Looked like he might be training.  [For this story we’ll call this unidentified paddler, “LongBoater” or “LB”.]

As Brooks geared up, he made a disturbing discovery.  His booties, the neoprene shoes he wears on the water, were back at camp, sitting by the firepit.  He had wet suit socks, but the problem was the fit.  Brooks paddles an open whitewater canoe, a Blackfly Octane 85.  He paddles kneeling with his feet secured in braces.  While the boat comes with stock retractable pegs, little plastic tabs that jut out, he uses his own custom foot braces. The custom outfitting worked perfectly when he was wearing his booties.

Steve G. explained he went through a period of paddling an open boat. “One thing I noticed about an open boat was you are always readjusting. I fell out, I have to tighten my thigh straps.  It’s hard to roll, I need to lower my seat.  Then, oh my god, my legs are falling asleep, I need to raise the seat. Oh no, now I’m flipping a lot, I need to…. And on and on.  A key thing is while you’re kneeling, you need to have your feet lodged tightly so you’re in the boat tight.  But the other key thing is you want to be able to get out of it.  So, it’s a yin-yang thing, tight but comfortable, tight but where you can get out.”

Without the wet shoes, Brooks elected to use the factory braces. He tightened them as much as possible. On the water he practiced sliding his feet out. It wasn’t the fit he wanted but it was the best he could do at the time.

Zach picks up here, “The first real rapid that comes up is Alien Boof. We caught up with the guy in the long boat, who had just hit it. We followed his line. Everyone hit smoothly. It was fun. At this point we all started to follow LongBoater.”

The group came to a Class II boogie water section. The river split into several braids, with small islands on each side. On river right there was a scrub covered island near the top of the next rapid, a two-foot ledge. Another small island was on river left, on the low side of the drop. The team was working its way river left to right. LongBoater was leading, then Steve, then Brooks and Zach.  A good bit of space between Steve and Brooks. The river was wider, fast but not as fast as the narrow sections.

Zach was close behind Brooks and studied his paddling style. Brooks is right-handed. “He’s paddling his dominant side, with his left hand on the grip of the paddle and his right hand on the shaft, on the left side of the boat. We’re going from river left to right.  He’s coming out of an eddy. His upstream edge is the right side. So, the forward stroke… is on the right side, which is his off-side. Which is a funky position. The offside for the open boat is pretty funky anatomically.”  [Later we’ll show a demonstration of this position.]

Brooks relates, “I saw these squirrely eddylines so I did a positive stroke to get back out into the current. I have a good offside stroke.  In the process of drawing that stroke, my paddle lost all resistance, all lift, it was like it was in a whirlpool or something. I’m a seasoned paddler and this was one of these instances where you plant your paddle and you get nothing. So I went right over on my offside.

Zach: “I was close behind Brooks. I think he bumped up on a rock he wasn’t expecting to hit. He was already on edge so he had this funky tip-over, in a few inches of water, really weird.”

Brooks: “Probably a little vortex in the water. This vortex was going in the direction I planted my paddle. I plant my paddle hard and I rely on that for my stability and it was like zero. It was like I was paddling in air. If you plant in a vortex on one side, it’s easy to plant your paddle because the water is going away from you. But this vortex was spiraling in the direction I pulled my paddle.”

Brooks: “I immediately noticed something was wrong. My arm didn’t feel right.”

Zach: “I’m right behind him.  He’s struggling to get set up for his roll.”

Brooks: “I just remember being in an awkward position when I flipped. I was paddling offside, probably near the end of my stroke, when I went over. I was in an awkward position to set up to roll. Something was weird right off the bat. That’s how quickly something happened to my shoulder. I felt it come out, my God, but I didn’t know what was happening.  It just, “Whaack” and pulled right out.

Zach: “And pretty quickly you can see he wasn’t getting set up, he was trying to get out of the boat.  At this point, I’m like, “this isn’t good,” and then I saw his paddle float up and thought “This really isn’t good.”

Brooks:  “When I went over there wasn’t enough space in my foot braces. When you go over, your legs aren’t necessarily square to the opening your feet are in. My feet were twisted, wedged, bound in the outfitting. And I only had one arm to work with.”

Zach was anxiously watching: “Every experienced kayaker knows what it’s like to be upside down in a few inches of water.  You’re getting banged around and trying to get from the position you flipped, into a set-up position. It’s the hardest part of rolling in shallow water. “

Brooks: “Keeping a cool head in hard rapids is very important. Keeping relaxed and chill. Practice raises your comfort level. Your confidence level. Being calm in high stress situations is probably the thing that kept me from sucking water into my lungs. Aspirating water.

Zach: When you see someone flip and they are not making any progress in setting up for a roll in five seconds you start to get concerned, “alright, get up.”

Brooks: “It felt like an eternity. Later, I was saying I was down for twenty seconds. Probably not.  More like ten to fifteen. When you’re freaking out about your arm not working and you’re trying to push out with a non-dominant hand with your legs twisted…. The thought that I’m not going to get out of this came to mind.”

Zach: “I watched him the whole time. I think it was in the ten second category.  He was under no more than 15 seconds.  Shoulder dislocation. Foot entrapment.  It’s a long time under water.”

Brooks: “I finally popped up and yelled, ‘My Arm.'”

Zach: “Brook’s head pops up out of the water. He has this big wide-eyed look on his face and is yelling “My shoulder, my shoulder.” He goes up on his knees. He wasn’t wearing a shirt under his life jacket so it’s extremely obvious that his shoulder was dislocated.”

Steve and LongBoater had dropped the ledge and were now out of sight around a bend. Realizing his roll wasn’t possible, Brooks dropped the paddle. Seeing Brooks above water, Zach grabbed his paddle and pulled out a whistle and started blowing it. Brooks worked free of the boat and grabbed a rock in the middle of the river. His canoe floated down and pinned on a rock in the ledge. Zach, recalling the rule, “Don’t become part of the problem,” ran the rapid.

Self-Rescue

Brooks was on a rock, in the middle of the river, in about two to three feet of fast current. The other paddlers were below the ledge, two of them unaware of his problem. Brooks had Swiftwater Rescue training and had participated in many rescue rodeos. He was prepared. His choices were to swim the rapid with one numb arm, not knowing what was below, or to try to crab-walk to shore.

Between the right shore and Brooks was a skinny island, more like a rocky mound of saplings and brush with no bare land. Ten feet of fast water separated him from the island.

Brooks tried to reset his shoulder.  He hung his damaged arm over the rock, hoping gravity would pull the humerus bone back into his shoulder joint.  No luck.  At this point, his arm was numb, but the searing pain hadn’t started.  While upside down in his boat his consciousness was firmly in the present.  Now, still in the moment, he focused on getting across the divide–the rock and the hard place.

Brooks: “I turned upriver. I had to really evaluate each step. Drop down or stepping up. You had to have it in your head–what if you misstep?  There were a lot of lessons to be taking in. Thank God, the rocks were clean, no algae or slime on them since the Upper is so often dry.”

Making it to the island, Brooks couldn’t climb up because of the undergrowth. He grabbed limbs and caught his breath. Then the awful realization set in.  He looked down at his mangled arm. Brooks is a stone mason – a tradesman, an artist. He regularly slings a two or three-pound hammer, moves stones weighing hundreds of pounds, constructs stone fences and walls and bridges, largely by himself. He’s been doing this for over forty years. And he is self-employed. Brook’s mind jolts out of the present to a grim future; it will be a long time before his mutilated arm will sling a hammer again. He starts screaming, cursing the gods.

Meanwhile Steve and LB had realized the problem. Zach and LongBoater parked their boats on the island on river left, on the low side of the rapid. Zach recalled, “Brooks seemed to be in an okay spot, so we prioritized getting his boat unpinned first. Long Boater jumped and swam through some little channels to access the boat and then pushed it to me.  I secured it.  Then I went to mid-river with a rope for safety.”

Steve said, “I couldn’t see him but saw Brook’s boat hung up on some rocks.  I looked over and saw Brooks getting out of the water and he didn’t look very good.  Didn’t look right.”

Brook’s mind was going in loops. “At least I’m breathing right now. Will I be able to paddle again?  When can I work again? What about the income, the satisfaction? I don’t want to get swept into the current. At least I have a place I can stand.  But how to get out of here?”

Brooks, “I had to go downcurrent 12-15 feet to the two-foot drop. There was a rock that I could put on my butt and slide down. Then I started hearing a clicking or clacking noise, like if you take two rocks and hit them together. A grinding noise. It was a pothole. I put my foot down and I could feel a stone bouncing around in the pothole. There was more than one stone, but it was primarily one making the sound. The way the water was hitting it was perfect to make a vortex. You could hear it. It was so cool. I’ve never heard a pothole in action. I’m sitting there in the middle of all this junk and I’m thinking, “Wow, that’s cool.”  Brooks knew he would survive this catastrophe. His world would keep going round.

LongBoater

LongBoater made it to an eddy eight or ten feet from Brooks. He was at ease and calm. He clearly explained to Brooks what he wanted him to do. Brooks listened. LongBoater, “Grab my bow.” Brooks grabbed it and LB reversed the boat into the eddy, having Brooks transfer to the stern. They started downriver. Pain was creeping into the damaged tendons.  Brooks asked to go downriver a little lower. They proceeded until, with difficult rapids ahead, they pulled to the bank.

Steve and Zach arrived with the canoe and paddle.  Brooks and LB were on shore. There was a quick triage discussion between LongBoater and Zach. Zac was a nursing student. While in Charleston he did five years of ocean rescue.  He was an Emergency Medical Responder, a level below an EMT. LongBoater was an EMT.  A military veteran, a medic. He paddled big water and did several rescues a year.  LB appeared calm, prepared for the situation. Zach said, “One thing I’ve noticed from my training is responders have little tactics: take a deep breath, chew on two sticks, do other rituals to settle themselves.  LB said, “Hold on. Brooks isn’t going anywhere. I’ve got to take a leak.”  Zach smiled and felt LB was ready for what was ahead.

The process of putting a dislocated shoulder back into its normal position is called “reducing a shoulder.”  It’s best to do this as soon as possible after the dislocation. The longer the wait, the more the muscles tighten, the more inflammation, possibly the more internal bleeding.  From a patient’s perspective, the discomfort starts as a numbness in the arm and shoulder and steadily increases to a debilitating agony. LongBoater lays Brooks on a rock and drapes his affected shoulder downward. This retraction method encourages relaxing of the muscles and letting gravity work. From this position LB tried to reduce the shoulder. Three times he tried, unsuccessfully. Brooks was strong but the pain was intense. Screams.

At this point, the group decided they needed help. They gathered Brooks and his gear and started walking out along the nearby trail. Brooks had to stop frequently. At the WWC thy put him in the shade.  A Tennessee park ranger came. When there is a dam release there are usually two or three rangers present. Finally a paramedic and then an ambulance arrived.

The Medical Response

(Editor’s note: We are describing this aspect of the event because there may come a time when one of us finds ourselves in this position.  We are not judging anyone, just sharing opinions about the process from people who experienced it.)

The paddlers had used ice packs to help Brooks. The first paramedic initiated IV access on his arm. The paramedic and ambulance techs gave a fentanyl dose to help with the pain. Oddly, this had no discernible effect on Brooks’ pain.

Steve described the fentanyl process. IV Fentanyl is an intravenous drug used to relieve intense pain. The EMTs take a long needle and screw the fentanyl cartridge onto the needle. Then they put the needle into a vein.  The cartridge has a plunger and they inject the fentanyl into the vein. The effect should be immediate.

With no response, the techs gave a second cartridge of fentanyl. Brooks was still in major pain. He said he couldn’t feel it.  The EMTs said we can’t do anymore.

Steve, Brooks and Zach independently wondered about the lack of effect of the fentanyl. Three explanations were considered: maybe the fentanyl cartridges weren’t properly attached to the needle.  Or the needle missed the vein, and the drug went into a muscle. And, most likely, Brooks has a resistance to fentanyl.

Zach has some experience placing intravenous injections. He watched the IVs administered to Brooks. He felt the cartridges and needles were functioning properly. Regarding hitting the vein, Zach said, “Brooks has tubes for veins, so he is extremely easy to stick. Once they’ve inserted the IV, they push 10 mils of saline into the vein. If you push 10 mils into “not a vein”, your skin will bloom at that location. It’s obvious if it infiltrated or not. It seemed obvious to me it was placed correctly.”

Another source of pain for Brooks, although it didn’t manifest until later, was the cost of the ambulance.  As he said, “I knew it was going to be expensive but Good Lord!”

Zach shared, “I don’t want to dog on people.  Neither me nor LongBoater thought Brooks was being gingerly treated  as he was put on the stretcher.  With a dislocation there is usually only one position that is somewhat comfortable.  Normally, you’re trying to immobilize the shoulder and the arm too. That requires pillows, blankets, straps, triangle bandages. Sling and swath bandages.  We were both underwhelmed at the care.  We felt they were just trying to get him in an ambulance and get him to the hospital.  Not trying to make him as comfortable as possible.”

Brooks was in severe pain now. “I was bleeding on the inside of my arm because it got saggy. I was in a weird position when they put the IV in, my arm upside down. When we got into the ambulance, and they settled me in, I saw blood going all the way up the tube and into the IV bag. That didn’t look normal. I’ve had plenty of IV’s and I’ve never seen this happen. What’s going on?  It was leaking blood down my arm.  Blood was going back down inside my arm.

My fingers are still numb after five weeks. I still get jabs of pain, random, sometimes on the surface, sometimes on my forearm, and that’s not the injury. The injury is in the shoulder and I’m getting jabs of pain in my forearm.  Maybe nerve damage.”

Steve loaded up their boats and equipment and headed to the hospital. He rushed up to find Brooks waiting for the doctor to arrive.

After the ambulance and Steve left, Zach and LongBoater decided to continue the paddle.  The Upper’s water was off, so they scooted and scraped down to the Middle.  There they had an enjoyable paddle, comparing notes in the lulls between rapids.  What would they do differently?

The doctor arrived and knew they would need to alleviate some of Brooks’ pain before they could try to reduce the shoulder.  Dilaudid, another painkiller, was given to Brooks and allowed to take effect.  Brooks gradually felt the effects of the dilaudid.  Once his body was more relaxed and the pain diminished, the doctor and an assistant started the work of reduction.  The assistant continually massaged the muscles in the area to lessen spasming.  The doctor had difficulty reducing the shoulder but twenty minutes later, it was done.  By now, three and a half hours had passed since Brooks flipped.

True to form, the pain subsided, doubtless aided by the dilaudid. Brooks was released, said his goodbyes to the many hospital staff who knew him by now, and left with Steve.  Brooks, “We went to eat Mexican. I was feeling the dilaudid and kinda mellow.  They ate and returned to camp. Steve had an extra roll-up cot he loaned to Brooks to make him more comfortable.  The next morning Brooks was doing reasonably well.  He helped a little with the tent and canopy and they made the long drive home.

The Recovery

Brooks left the hospital with six hydrocodone, one each six hours. After that he took Tylenol to relieve pain. Brooks said, “I couldn’t sleep for a month. I was taking Tylenol. My doctor finally gave me Gabapentin, which is supposed to help you sleep. [Gabapentin is an anticonvulsant medication that is effective in relieving nerve pain. Often given to treat epilepsy and pain from injuries.]  I would take melatonin and Tylenol to get reasonable sleep.”

Brooks visited one doctor right away and then settled on another physician. He liked the second one’s explanations and thoroughness.  An MRI was done several weeks later.  As usual, MRIs must be scheduled weeks ahead.  The report was not good.  Brooks recounted, “The doctor said as “far as rotator cuff injuries go, this was in the ‘Oh, Sxxt’ category, his words.  Ripped it good.” Three tendons to be reattached. Rotator cuff ripped. Labrum torn. They would need to cut and reposition the bicep muscle and reattach it to the bone. Three incisions to do orthoscopic surgery. One cut across the front to repair the muscle. This would be done on October 9, the earliest available time.

What Happened?

Brooks demonstrates: “So this arm is really out there, with a lean, carving out.  I was doing a power stroke, all my weight was reliant upon what my paddle was able to grab, for the resistance I needed to propel forward.”

With the aid of a bony friend, Brooks demonstrates the extent of the reach with his right arm.  Even more since his torso would be rotated in that direction.

Zach LeClerc watched Brooks go over and then fifteen seconds later, come back up, his right side severely reshaped. What happened to do this much damage?

Zach is observant and analytical.  He conjectures, “Look at the forces. Open boats are very heavy, particularly his.  50lbs. for sure, perhaps 55lbs. [51lbs. empty]. Then wedge your body into it. The way you brace yourself into those boats is to jam your feet into it as tight as you can.

The current is strong. You’re getting banged around. Your head is underwater. You have that realization, ‘If I don’t get up, this could be it.’ Your body does extreme things to free itself. It’s easy, especially if you’re very strong, to move your body in ways it’s not designed to move, to get the results you need. And the results Brooks needed were to be out of his boat and his head above water.”

We mention Brooks says his arm seemed to go numb as soon as he went over.

Zach: “Brooks was in that offside stroke, an awkward position.  He could have hit a rock, or a rock could have hit him in the armpit.  With an extended position, an elbow above his head, in an offside stroke, that puts your elbow above your shoulder.  As a kayaker you call that being “out of the box.” In that position you are vulnerable to some sort of hard force, and if it were on your arm, you could pop your shoulder out. I think a rock could have been involved, pushing that shoulder out of place. You add current, boat weight, the anxiety of the situation, weird things can happen.

The result could have been worse. He could have hit his head and been knocked out. He could have gotten entrapped.  Brooks was able to self-rescue, do what it took to maintain his level of consciousness and that’s applaudable.  It’s a testament to how our bodies work in crazy ways to prioritize our breath and heartbeat. As bad as it was, it was a success.”

Post Op

CP talked with Brooks after the operation.  It’s been difficult with one arm. Cooking, Driving. Everything is harder. Going to the bathroom.  Makes for frustration.

I don’t know that much about the anatomy of the operation. The doctor said three of the four tendons were severed. The humerus bone was loose. Not good.

He said there was a tendon coming down here (gesturing) that terminates to the bone and it was severed. Another comes up from the back, severed.  And the tendon that comes from the over the shoulder was severed.