Quote:
Originally Posted by Dink
What was the "near miss"?
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I "grew up" a lot when I had my first baby 4 years ago. I started wearing life jackets all the time in the winter months when headed to the camp. I had even purchased me a $150 float coat so I had no excuses. I wore it religiously.
One October afternoon me and a buddy decide to make a pm bowhunt. We dock in the basin and head down river towards our camp. I drop him at the camp to hunt near there and I head about a half mile down, float coat on, kill switch attached.
Sat on stand, saw nothing, walked out. By the time I get back to the boat I'm sweating pretty good so I just lay my bow on top of the float coat in the bottom of my buddies tiller handle boat(15 ft alum flat with 50hp). I take off to go get him, no PFD or kill switch.
Get half way down the canal and the wind catches the float coat with my bow on top and takes it over the side. I lunge to grab the bow and when I do the handle cuts and dumps me out dead center in the middle of the GA Cut. I'm wearing a sweater, jeans and lacrosse rubber boots. Doesn't seem like much, swimming in those lacrosse boots, but its nearly impossible. Then the boat whips right around and comes at me. For the first minute all I do is dive and try and evade the boat as it keeps circling and passing directly over me. Finally the boat starts whipping out down stream and I try and swim toward the bank. Couldn't get anywhere, the Lacrosse boots prevent you from straightening out your feet so you get no kick.
The only thing that saved my life is I got to a point where it hit me that I probably wasn't gonna make it out of this. All I could do was think about my wife who was pregnant with my second baby at the time and out of state on work. There was no way I was gonna let someone tell her I had drowned.
I stopped kicking my feet and went underwater and did the american crawl, coming up for air as needed. A few times I almost didn't make it up for air. When I hit the bank I passed out. Then I had to retrieve the boat which ended up about a 600 yards further down river. It was still in gear and going in circles at the bank, slowing when it would hit the shallows and kick up mud. I managed to grab on and jump in.
When I made it back to camp about 2 hours late my buddy thought I had killed a deer. Then he realized I was shaking, soaking wet and my camo face paint was all wiped off. I could barely speak and was vomiting. He drove us back and the shock finally wore off about an hour later and I was able to tell him exactly what happened.
The stars were perfectly aligned for me to die that day. I thought about all the little decisions that i made, and had any one of them go the other way and that doesn't happen.
Sorry so long, but if it saves somebodies life it's worth it. Something bad will happen when you least expect it.