New River Gorge – river trip and rafting incident
| River: | New |
| Skill: | Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 07/16/2011 |
New River Gorge Cunard to Fayette Station
Gauge – Fayette Station 0.1 ft.
7/16/11.
Paul Scrutton
Jon Godwin
We took our big boats to the NRG to simulate a race-paddle for the upcoming Captain Thurmond race. The river at 0.1 ft had plenty of flat water between the rapids.
The trip got off to an unusual start at Upper Railroad rapid, the first rapid on this section of the river. As we paddled just left of the large hole that defines the start of the rapid, we noticed several throwlines across the river, and what looked like a class or rescue going on. We paddled down and asked some questions. People standing on the side of the river did not give us the thumbs up, we paddled down into an eddy to see what was going on.
There were 2 rafts, a video-boater, and several people positioned next to a boulder half way down the rapid, and raft guides were using swift water skills to wade up to the rock. After a short period it became obvious that a person was trapped underneath or in front of the boulder. Talking to other kayakers who had witnessed the scene for the duration of the event it became apparent that the person had been trapped for about 15 mins.
The raft guides worked for about 10-15 mins, and freed up the body presaumably, and two of the guides broke way and floated off down the river. The next thing that I saw was that CPR was being administered by the guides on the side of the bank, and the victim was put onto a backboard. I paddled over to offer a CPR mask. This was not needed, but I was asked to paddle down to the other rafts in the group on river right to inform them that the company was performing an evacuation on river left. I passed on that information to the respective raft guides, amongst complete silence from the various groups of rafters.
We paddled down fast to hit the next rapids. As we met up with newer groups of happy rafters, we could tell they were unaware of the sad event that had taken place upstream.
Our goal all along had been to try to find fast lines through the rapids. At lower railroad, we ran well right of center to avoid the clamshell rock.
In the Keaney’s I was half flipped in middle Keaney (paddling too much I think) and kept upright with a pry on my right side. I was spun sideways in lower Keaney. The Nomad creekboat which I was paddling was turning more than I expected it to.
We made it through the Keaneys, and chatted to some squirt boaters at Halls of Karma.
On Double-Z, I hopped quickly into and out of the eddy moving from river right to center to complete the rapid. Jon eddy hopped down the right side for most of the rapid.
Greyhound bus stopper looked pretty tame today, and we paddled down past it, and then through the Kaymores.
In Millers Folly I took a dodgy line, ending up paddling up and over a sizeable water covered boulder, but clearing the backwash of the drop OK.
Hitting the waves at Fayette Station, we were done in about 2 hours.