c a s e s t u d y what if…
YOU’RE PINNED IN YOUR KAYAK? “I
RETURN TO THE LIGHT Trapped in an undercuT
In May of 2006, Mark Heard—a former Canadian National Slalom Champion and veteran of many difficult and committing expeditions, including B.C.’s Homathko and Dean rivers—lost his life and narrowly got it back on Whistler’s Callaghan Creek. Steve Whittall, a member of Whistler Search and Rescue, had paddled with Heard earlier that day and got the call to evacuate him after the accident.
t was the first day of a weeklong paddling road- trip. Kayakers from across B.C. and Alberta had travelled to Whistler and were eager to get started. With an afternoon run on the class IV Soo River under our belts, everyone was fired up for a late run on Callaghan Creek. Timing was tight—a 6 p.m. put-in for a run that
I
takes two to three hours. Callaghan is a class V creek in a deep basalt canyon that has undercut cliff walls and underwater caverns. I opted out due to other commitments. The pad-
dlers would run the river without local knowledge. A notorious underwater cave at the first rapid
had trapped local paddlers before, but never with severe consequences. An easy boof at higher flows, on this low-flow day the 12-foot ledge dropped Heard, 44, onto a boil that surfed him back under the curtain and into the cave. Unable to roll, Heard exited his boat but couldn’t
swim out of the cave. After more than five minutes without air, he floated out of the cave facedown. Ian Norn was watching from an eddy immedi-
ately downstream. He clipped onto Heard with his tow system, dragged him to shore and immedi- ately commenced CPR. Two doctors in the pad- dling group helped resuscitate Heard. They shot him with epinephrine and stabilized him as best as possible on the riverbank. The group lit a fire on the snowy ground. Jean Bourdua hiked out to a logging road and
back to his vehicle to call for help on his cell. Having difficulty describing access options to
the Provincial Emergency Program (PEP) Coor- dination Centre and B.C. Ambulance Service, Bourdua suggested they contact me to clarify the location. I knew that the only viable and timely evacuation
from the canyon was via helicopter, but it takes time to get a mission approved by PEP and as- semble the necessary manpower, helicopter and equipment. I called Search Manager Brad Sills to mobilize our response. Within half an hour, we were in the air. In the ap-
proaching darkness, the fire proved invaluable for directing the helicopter and serving as a visual reference for the pilot. Heard was secured in an aerial rescue platform, hooked to the long-line and lifted above the tree canopy. Scott Aitken, a local paddler and Search and Res-
cue volunteer, was on the end of the line. “[Heard] was thrashing, seizing. Still swimming,” he recalls. “ ‘Just lie down’ I kept saying.” Heard managed to force his arms out of the Velcro strapping of the rescue platform while in the air. “His strength…was [a large] part of his survival,” says Aitken. Delivered to the Whistler Clinic by 9 p.m., Heard
was re-warmed, intubated, stabilized and then heli-evacuated to Vancouver General Hospital. Four years later, Heard has made a full recov-
ery. He continues to practice as an orthopoedic surgeon in Canmore, Alberta, and still paddles whitewater. —Steve Whittall
» analysis: Callaghan Creek is essentially roadside paddling, only half
an hour south of Whistler, a town with a well-equipped clinic, multiple helicopter companies and a Search and Rescue team trained in long-line rescue. Aitken reflects, “We had a lot of luck…and a lot of resources. It was an incredible chain of events that allowed Mark to live. Take out any link and the outcome would have been completely different.”
self-inflicted death, cruicified in my boat,” writes Chris Wheeler in Franco Ferrero’s Whitewater Safety and Res- cue (Pesda Press, 2006). Wheeler was the victim of every creek boater’s worst nightmare—the vertical pin. Beyond the reach of his paddling
partners’ throw bags and rescue ef- forts, and quickly losing the strength to keep his head above the icy wa- ter, Wheeler made a tough call; he launched his upper body into the cur- rent. He hoped the action would break his legs and free him. Ripped from his boat and towed to shore by a rescue boat, the plan worked, with one mis- calculation. Both of Wheeler’s knees had dis-
located, tearing all of his cruciate ligaments and leaving him unable to walk for three months and with nerve damage lasting for over a year. Never- theless, Wheeler considered himself lucky, recovering from the accident to return to creeking with a healthier re- spect for river hazards.
deal WiTH iT: Victims of verti- cal pins are often able to breath in the air pocket created by water flow- ing around them, and get out of their boats unassisted by stepping off the central pillar. Rescuers can rig a snag or cinch line to support an exhausted victim, allowing him to catch a rescue line, attach it to his chest harness or shoulder strap and be pulled out of the kayak backwards.
avoid iT: Don’t paddle drops with a high risk of vertical pinning—steep, boulder-choked rapids are particular- ly hazardous and should be scouted carefully. Use a kayak with a keyhole cockpit and step-out pillar on all runs with pin potential.—VM
t was decision time. I did not want to die like this, an undignified,
www.rapidmag.com
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PHOTO: DUNBAR HARDY
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