Ten seconds short of drowned

On Friday, July 13th, I went whitewater rafting on the upper Clackamas River for a field trip at work. I was very excited and had a lot of fun, until I got the surprise of my life. I'll get straight to it.

                I’m on the side of the raft, looking down into a giant swirling hole, a rapid they call the Toilet Bowl. We’ve done something wrong, because I feel the raft turning up in a sort of I’m-going-to-flip-over-and-you-are-going-to-fall-out sort of way. But what makes my fear of falling out of the raft greater is the fact that I am looking straight down at a rock. When I fall out, my face is going to smash straight into it.

                At the last second, I pinch my nose so water won’t go up it and sort of turn myself so that my side lands on the rock and not my face. I feel a rush of water cover me. I don’t remember anything about the temperature, because that was not what was uncomfortable. It could have been 40 degrees and I wouldn’t have known, because what I most wanted was to breathe air. I think to myself okay, struggle for a few seconds, pop out, then breathe. Problem is, I’m getting suffocated. I am underneath the raft and it isn’t flipping over anytime soon. I can’t hold my breath any longer and try a premature suck of air. Water fills my lungs.  I wave my hands upwards and try as hard as I can to get the raft off.

                Air. I suck it in for a half a second, feel that I am slipping away from the rock I had landed on, and desperately try to wrap my fingers around it. I inch forward, panicked. One of my team members is also clinging to the rock. I look forward and see another raft coming. I look back and see a guide in a different raft making motions to assume the river swimming position, which is “toes and nose up.”

                My fingers let go and I am flushed down the Toilet Bowl. I do my best to stay on my back, to keep my feet out and my nose up so that I can breathe air. But it’s no good. My face is hit with rapid after rapid. I can’t feel any air touching my skin. I try not to breathe, but then again I try to breathe every second I think I can get, because who knows how long it will be until I get more oxygen.

                I’m under, under, under.  God, please let me live, I think. I just need to make it to the end. Just need to hold on until the water calms and I can breathe again. But water is filling up inside of me. I’m swirling underneath, and there is the second that I think This Is It. I can’t hold on any longer. Should I give up? So this is what it feels like to drown, I think.

                But I hang on. I fight. No, I will not die. The right words to describe what if felt like do not exist. The best I can explain is that drowning has a similar sensation to falling from a tree and landing on your chest, while at the same time getting 100 gallons of water poured down your nose and throat, while being rolled down a hill of rocks. It feels like panic.

                Finally the mad gushes of water stop, and I struggle to breathe and cough at the same time. My breaths are incredibly shallow, a quarter of a second probably. I’ve still got water in my nose and water in my lungs that I am trying to get out. One more second, I think. I will be able to breathe in one more second. Even though the rapids have stopped, the water is moving swiftly and I am still met with the occasional lap of water to the face.

                Soon I am at the side of a raft. I hold onto it and try to breathe before they pull me in. Katie grabs me by the life jacket and hauls me inside. I collapse in a pile, sputter, suck, and gasp for air. “Are you okay, are you okay?” voices say. I’m trying to recover, but two seconds later it’s “quick, move, get out of the way,” because someone else needs to get pulled in.

                I make a very half-hearted attempt to climb over the seat and end up falling into the little nook at the front of the raft, at the feet of one of the guides, a guy who’s got to be like 21 years old, if that. I sit there in a hunched little ball, trying to breathe. I feel tiny, pathetic, and shaken.

                The four rafts congregate together, counting how many people they have pulled in, making sure we are all here. We rest for a few minutes, checking people for cuts and concussions. Everybody’s okay. Then they want us to get back in the empty raft. And all I think is Can’t I just stay here for the rest of the trip? Hunched in a ball on the floor by your feet? But I can’t. I transition over to the other raft, my raft, the raft that betrayed me. My legs are shaking. Someone hands me a paddle.

                We make our way down the river. It’s calm. I don’t say anything. I row when the guide says row, and I stop when he says stop. I stare out to the bank and think. I am overwhelmed with a sense of grief. Because three days earlier, a friend of a friend had died in a waterfall, trying to save a kid who fell in. Was that what it was like for you, Brett? I think. It was like that, wasn’t it? Only worse. The panic overtook, the water filled your lungs, and you didn’t get enough air. I think about him, under that dark water, fighting for life. And then it ending.

                How soon does your soul leave you? I wonder. When you drown, does your brain keep having thoughts like in a dream, even though you are not breathing? How soon does it stop? How soon is it until you don’t realize that you are dying? I imagine myself back there, floating lifeless in the water. Would I have separated from myself and watched myself get pulled in, watched as someone attempted CPR? Or would my soul have been bound through it all? Not left me until later?

                I contemplate on this, thinking about Brett, and at what point he must have been in Jesus’ arms. I’m sorry Brett, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you—only met you one time, but I’m close to knowing what it was like. I wish you never had to go through that.

                “You seem a lot quieter,” Eric says to me as we paddle. “Having flashbacks?”

                I try to smile and shake my head no. Because I don’t want to tell the 17 year old next to me that I’m thinking about a man who died in the water just a few days ago, that I’m about to burst into tears.

               We’re floating down the river, and I start to think of all the uncomfortable ways to die. Because surely they must all be different. Smoke inhalation. Burning up. Falling and smashing into the pavement. Sudden impact car crash. Drowning. Suffocation.

 I realize that I am not afraid to be dead. Being dead would be okay. After all, I’d be with God in paradise. But it’s the in between that I am terrified of. The time of almost dying and dying that really freaks me out. Because it’s full of panic and of pain.

                I start to think about Satan and how it ain’t no big thang if I die, because I’d be in heaven and God wins. But if it’s not a victory for Satan for me to be dead (since I’d be with Jesus), then is it not a loss for God if I am not alive on earth? Or does it matter? The conclusion I’ve come to is this: me dying doesn’t make Satan incredibly happy, because he hasn’t won me. God would be glad to take me into his kingdom. But even though Satan doesn’t get to add me to his dark, fiery pit of hell, he probably would be sort of happy that I was gone, because that’s one warrior taken out of the battle.

                Christians shouldn’t fight to live because they are afraid of death, they should fight to live because it means there is a bigger army to battle for God. Satan would love to take me out because that means no more Bible club at the local elementary school. It means no more love letters left in the library for a stranger to find. It means no more Joelle on earth to speak truth.

                Today I breathe air, and I breathe it deeply and thankfully. And while I am afraid of the process of dying, I am not afraid to be dead. I fight to live because I’m a valuable warrior in the Lord’s army and you can’t get rid of me that easily. I throw up my middle finger to you, Satan.