A River Rescue

Did I ever tell you about the time last summer I rescued a guy from the river?

It was the middle of a hot day, and I had taken a scull boat up to Redbud Island. There were some college age kids swimming from the rocks when I got there, and I stopped to watch them and catch my breath.

There were boys and some girls. Three boys were in the water, and the rest of the group was on shore watching the swimmers as they made their way into the main river current.

Depending on the circumstances, the current there can be gentle or swift. And the swift water can be deceiving: a flat, calm surface concealing fast moving water. Still, it isn't wide at this point, and the fact is that there are two huge Sycamore trees on the far side with long swinging ropes hanging from their branches luring people from the island. So it's not uncommon to see people swimming to the other side from the island.

But something about these three guys attracted my attention. One of them was swimming poorly None of them was a particularly good swimmer, but this one in particular was swimming that fake crawl stroke that you often see boys swim, turning his always-above-the-water face from side to side as he awkwardly rotated his arms. The other two guys made fair progress across the river, but this guy's stroke was inefficient, and he wasn't making much headway. And as he got into the main current, he was swept downstream faster than the other two, who soon reached the slower waters by the far bank.

Now don't let me over dramatize this. There were no whitecaps. There was no rushing sound of water (as there sometimes can be at that spot). The guy was making progress -- just very slowly. And although he was moving away from his two friends, he realized this and had begun to correct this by swimming a little upstream as he made for shore.

I sat in the boat drinking water from my bottle, watching these events unfold. And then I heard the one guy say to the others in a calm but firm voice that he was getting tired.

I started to pull my boat around.

He then shouted, I don't think I can make it.

I pulled hard on the oars.

I'm too tired, he shouted.

I was half-way across. One of the other two guys was swimming back out from the shore. The other was telling his friend to call for help if he needed it, and he pointed at me.

By the time they began calling to me, I was almost there. I tried to convince the guy in the water to grab onto the nose of the boat, but instead he grabbed the starboard oarlock, which jerked the scull to the side. The blade of my oar slapping the surface of the water was the only thing that kept me from joining him in the water.

I pulled him slowly to shore. When we got there, he let go and swam the rest of the way. That he was grateful was obvious, but neither of us really knew what to say.

How are you going to get back across? I asked, pointing back to the island, leaving my next (obvious) bit of advice unspoken.

One of them answered by pointing to a path that disappeared into the woods. We'll walk!

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Town Lake
Austin, Texas

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