WATERLINES
SOCIAL EVENTS LIKE THIS FUN RACE IN D.C. FOR VETS AND THEIR FAMILIES.
TEAM RIVER RUNNER ORGANIZES PHOTO: COURTESY TEAM RIVER RUNNER/ROBB SCHARETG
HEALING WATERS
PADDLING IS MORE THAN JUST A HOBBY, IT’S VITAL THERAPY
A DESPERATE MAN stands in a room with a shotgun, a fishing rod and a choice. One tool represents despair, the other hope. He chooses life—the fishing rod—and goes kayaking.
A woman is run down at the side of the road in Iraq while changing the tire on her Hum- vee. She wakes up from a two-year coma, able to function in every way but without the ability to remember anything from day to day. Then she goes kayaking, and that becomes the first thing she remembers in three years. “The experience was so positive that it cracked the shell on all the bad stuff,” ex- plains Jim Dolan, who tells me these stories as examples of the many lives he’s seen kayaking save.
Dolan is the founder and director of He- roes on the Water (HOW), an organization that takes wounded U.S. veterans out kayak fishing. Dolan, an avid kayak angler who flew for the U.S. Air Force for 13 years before a career as an American Airlines captain, saw helping wounded veterans as a call to duty. “We owe these guys our best,” he says. “They have given so many pieces of them- selves. We need to help get them up and running again. Kayak fishing is a great way to do it.”
34 | ADVENTURE KAYAK
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the therapeutic connection between kayaking and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I’m preoccupied by some disturbing news that emerged in Canada last year: the suicides of eight military veterans in as many weeks. This led to my reading the excellent book by the Iraq war journalist David Finkle, Thank You For Your Service, which gives an intimate look into the lives of a few U.S. veterans and the extreme challenges they face getting healed.
Who is doing anything about this? Kayak- ers, it turns out, are playing a vital role. Dolan describes kayaking as physiothera- py, occupational therapy and mental therapy rolled into one. It’s remarkably effective and also damn cheap.
“There are organizations that spend five grand to take a guy or gal to Montana to go fly fishing, but for five grand I can take 100 guys out and do it in their backyard,” ex- plains Dolan. “I can take them out tomorrow. It’s immediate, it’s inexpensive, it’s now and it’s local. It’s extremely simple.” HOW often works with veterans who have been injured in explosions, suffering brain inju- ry and mental stress. As Dolan describes it, the brain essentially shuts down for self-protection.
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