In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

r1 n 1988 Karen Smith went on her first Royal River Rats trip, V although not on Georgie's boat. She was one of fourteen passengers on an S-rig on which Marty Hunsaker was the boatman and trip leader. They got into a some trouble at Crystal Rapid. The current caught them, as Karen later said: We were going to the right of Crystal and the current caught the boat and Marty was at the helm and he was holding the boat motor so hard that he broke the handle off of the motor trying to get us out of there. We went into the hole and it seemed like we were under water forever! But, you know, I don't know how long. But then, all of a sudden it spit us out, spun us around, and we smashed into the wall!! One of the passengers fell out and three people were injured. With the motor out of commission, they floated along until they came into a little eddy and waited there. There were two doctors on board, one of them a head-and-neck surgeon and one a general practitioner. They took care of the injured people. A Hatch River Expeditions party picked up the girl who had fallen overboard and brought her back to Marty's boat. Passengers were always told to hang on with both hands while going through any and all rapids. One of those injured was a man who ignored this and was trying to take photographs in Crystal. He gashed his leg rather badly. No one had broken bones, however, and the injuries were not serious. 23J In 1989 Marty Hunsaker did not fare as well. Tanya Wilcox, a swamper on Marty's boat, said that on the third day of their trip they approached Crystal Rapid and pulled to shore on the right side above the rapid so that they could scout it. Boatmen Chuck Kane and AI Korber were on another S-rig traveling with them. Georgie had gone through the rapid about an hour earlier and would wait to have lunch with them at the "Ross Wheeler," which Georgie called "Iron Boat Camp." Korber scouted the rapid with Marty and his group. After looking it over, Marty said, "Okay. Let's do it." So Marty, Tanya, boatman Paul Semerjian, and their thirteen passengers returned to the boat and began their run. Korber was to come through last. He and his passengers watched from a nearby bluff as Marty began his run; Chuck Kane remained with the boats. On his approach into the tongue, Marty was a little to the left in the current when his motor conked out. He was cranking like crazy to get it started again when the current swept the boat into the left side of the rapid, just where he did not want to go. Kjeld Harris was a passenger on Marty's boat. He remembers: As we went into Crystal Marty decided to go to the left side against the sheer wall instead of on the right side of the boulder , the more or less safe way around Crystal. We high-sided on the left side, got pushed up on the rock wall, high sided by a rock, by a big wave near a rock, came back down and flattened out upright, and then got hit again by a wave coming from right to left. Got pushed up the wall and flipped us over.2 Tanya said Marty never intended to go left, but meant to make the safe run along the right side and got pulled left by the current when the motor died.3 Harris was a scuba diver, and he remembered his scuba training. He followed the direction of his bubbles and was able to push off from the canyon wall where the current had him pinned against a rock. He came up under the raft while it was still going through the rapid. He began looking for an air pocket but could not find one, so he pulled himself along the raft, getting beat up against the rocks, and finally came up on the upriver side of the raft gasping for air. He grabbed hold of the side of the raft and, with great effort, pulled himselfup onto it. Harris said that a small woman named Joyce Sloninger was pinned in the space between the main part of the raft and the metal 240 [3.143.23.176] Project MUSE...

Share