I need to thank some people

[NickHobbs]

I want say thanks to, Shelby, Bob, Chitwood, Chris, John, Kyle, Mom, and Dad.To make a long story short, I dislocated my shoulder at Beech falls yesterday, they tried several attempts to get it back in the socket with know luck. The decision was made to hike out, Shelby and Chitwood paddled down with Chris's and my boat. They would paddle there boats down the big rapids and then walk back up and get our boats. I am very glad I don't have to hike back down in there and get my boat. I want to thank Chris for keeping me going on the hike out he kept pushing me, and I needed it. Chris wanted to help me so bad but there was nothing he could do, except walk beside me and encourage to keep going. After about a 2 hour hike out we got a ride back to the van. Shelby drove me to Clarksville, my mom and dad took over from there, and drove me to Fort Smith to the hospital. A couple of good things did happen after all of this, with some help I got my drytop off before they cut it off at the hospital, and I learned if i'm ever having a bad day, not much can compare to the hike out of Beech creek with your arm dangling loose from your shoulder. I almost forgot to thank Hunter for helping me get my underware on at the van Thanks to everybody that was involved

[gannon311]

Hope u heal up fast !!!!! How long u going to be down? U get tough man award for getting your dry to off with your shoulder out and dangeling !!

[RomanLA]

A couple of good things did happen after all of this, with some help I got my drytop off before they cut it off at the hospital, and I learned if i'm ever having a bad day, not much can compare to the hike out of Beech creek with your arm dangling loose from your shoulder.

It sounds like you had a good crew. I'm glad they got you out safely and absolutely amazed they saved your drytop! I highly recommend that everyone put a couple triangle bandages in their first aid kit and learn how to use them. Shoulders injuries are common in kayaking and it's good to be prepared! Take care and heal fast! :)

[ckuntz]

Very sorry I couldn't get your shoulder back in place..
Would have definitely been a lot easier than that hike. I probably would have gone into shock from the pain for sure. Shows what a great athlete you are to do that hike in all that pain. I felt that all in all the day ended well. All of us tried multiple times to position Nicks shoulder correctly so that it would pop back in place. Maybe Mike Hillis could have given me some pointers but rotating was causing incredible pain...
Hope the shoulder heals up quickly Nick

Chris K

[Dr. Steve Yaney]

So sorry nick, you being in great shape should help the recovery. New challenge for you to dominate I will gladly bike race you anytime (in the next 3 days) Keep

[Ate My Lunch]

Nick, wishing you the quickest recovery! I really hate to hear about that happening to you.

Chris, that's the second Paddler of the Season you've beaten up out there man! Just kidding brother, if there's anyone out there who could offer the most possitive support during a trying situation on the water, it's C Kuntz.

[prophet]

sorry nick. been there, done that not far from there. not fun, but it will get better

[Fish]

Man, sorry to hear about the injury, but glad to hear you got out of there OK. That's a tough break man - hope you heal up real soon!

[NoQuarter]

Nick--heal up! Man, you stayed cool and focused through ridiculous pain.

I can't say enough about the calm, careful and super chill decision making and execution--and not just while it was going down but all throughout the day. It's one thing to respect a boater, it's another to see them in crisis management and I can say that as we worked through our options, I don't encounter folks in many places that communicate and work the s**t out as well as everyone did. I learned a lot yesterday.

[shelbyjohnson]

After a day of rest and some reflection I’d like to offer some follow up thoughts that might be something akin to a debrief or more apropos a lessons learned - an event critique if you will.

Replay after replay in my mind’s eye – Nick did nothing wrong that was apparent. His line at the Fall’s mimicked the exact same line in nearly an identical fashion as 4 or 5 other boaters that day. I surmise that same sort of reaction curler that you – yourself got turned over by the last time you turned over was what caused Nick to go over. Water loaded up the rear left deck at a moment of imbalance and over he went. On the drive to Clarksville, Nick recounted several times that he knew something was wrong with the shoulder before he was fully upside down. I can only guess that it must have been a high brace that ejected the ball of his arm bone forward and out of its place since it was his left shoulder.

If it would have been the right shoulder I think we would be able to lame blame squarely on him hitting the flake that causes the rooster tail but since it was on his left side there’s no boulders of consequence there and in addition we were at the Falls as the surge was coming down so the level was a bit higher than shown below.



Chuck Bewley took this awesome photo of Marc Becker on the drop just the day before. This perspective shows the rooster tail exploding on the right and Nick was running this same line that Marc is shown running. Nick was going over at point that would be about perpendicular to the large Sycamore tree that is visible on the left bank. He was under just as he passed that tree. As you can see there’s nothing except water, hole and curler on the left side of Marc’s line, same with Nick’s.

What’s my point? Nick’s accident was just that, an accident and a fluke. It was just a weird fluke of a thing and I don’t think can be explained any other way.

What I’d like to focus on next was our group reactions, decisions and hindsight.

Chitwood and I both had ropes set on river right. Nick goes over and neither of us reacted. It was Nick Hobbs, he’ll roll, no worry, no problem. We shouldn’t have been slow to react but our past experience deceived us and we assumed he was okay and would roll. Nick and boat flushed on down and neither of us threw our ropes that were in hand. Chitwood said, “I’ll hold rope for these next guys you go chase Nick.” Hindsight a rope throw would have done no good, still we should have reacted quicker.

Presence of mind, physical fitness and herculean adrenaline overcomes dangling ball joint and 30 yards downstream Nick has self-rescued himself and his boat full of water onto the river center boulder above the next drop. It was here that we would spend roughly the next 45 minutes to an hour. Mind you, river left here at this boulder is a nasty un-runnable sieve and this same boulder is almost always used as a scouting rock for the boof it creates which would be just to the right of the sieve.

Nick told me immediately I am in bad shape and I think my shoulder is out. I got his boat out of the edge of water and up onto the boulder. I could barely drag it. Think this over. He dragged the kayak there, swimming with one arm and holding onto the boat with the dislocated one. Hindsight we maybe should have complained that he didn’t get his own paddle too.

Other paddlers arrived and eddied, I motioned Chris to the boulder and when he arrived we started the discussion on the best way to attempt a reduction. Nick was sitting down in as comfortable a spot as was available. We visited for a good bit with Nick, Chris and myself. Nick’s wits and demeanor was good but we knew he was in pain. We knew if we could get it relocated quicker the better. Our first several efforts with the three of us working together failed. We could not seem to get enough traction. We talked openly about wanting to not make matters worse. Nick reached a point where he was ready to do something and try to get it reset.

By this time our contingent of all 7 were on the boulder. Bob, John & Kyle began the discussion about how to get Nick off the boulder and ultimately onto river right. Meanwhile the rest of us continued modest but futile efforts at a reduction. We were reluctant to move him and to remove his paddle top. Chitwood began to do a more careful assessment of the shoulder and concluded the ball of the arm bone was in front of the shoulder and not behind.

Squeamish skip next paragraph.

Another episode of traction was attempted that caused severe pain and Nick turned very pale. Shortly afterwards he was ready to try again. We talked through another strategy that Bob offered having seen done once before. Kyle and Chris sat down on Nick’s right to brace him pulling his torso in their direction. Bob sat down opposite on Nick’s left and put his foot underneath to crook of his armpit and held his left hand as if in a rowing machine position. Chitwood braced from the rear of the left shoulder and I had the bicep pulling in the same direction as Bob. Altogether we all applied slow steady pressure straight out. I would guess we were applying well upwards of 50 pounds of force probably more. The traction worked to ease the pain but it would not relocate even after attempts at rotation while in as much traction as we could muster.

In between the episodes of relocation attempts we began discussing the inevitable. The group confronted the brutal facts that we would have to self-rescue. There was no going for help. We were the help. There was no road nearby and at best if we did get help, the help could not be mobilized in enough time to get there before dark and once there they would have to extract over the same rough terrain in darkness. Daylight savings time had worked to our favor. It was roughly 2pm when dislocation happened and that was a bonus.

Ultimately Nick confronted the fact that he would have to hike out. Had this been a leg injury of some sort our strategy, timing and decisions would have been entirely different but Nick was able to walk. Albeit painful to walk, he could walk. Bob and John had found a route across to river right that could be waded. Balls deep, the three of them went across Bob in front Nick middle and John behind. The rest made their way across and ferried boats.

We decided to scout overhead to see if a trail was close by on Cave Mountain. There was not at this point. Bob remembered that when Ryan Center broke his arm the year before he had successfully walked out on a trail on river right somewhere downstream of where we were located but he did not know how far. We also knew the crown of Cave Mountain is capped with a bluff. So straight up and out was no option. We discussed and concluded our best option was to have Nick and at least one other walk in a downstream direction keeping the creek in sight as much as possible. Chris’ background as a critical care nurse was the obvious choice. His concern was he did not know the terrain and the way out but he stayed with Nick while the rest would get boats downstream as methodically as possible.

Nick and Chris hiked roughly a quarter mile downstream. At creek level we kept them in sight and they kept us in sight as much as feasible. We reached a point where the northern most crest of Cave Mountain seemed visible. Nick and Chris hiked back closer to the creek. We discussed this was the point where Nick needed to get out and Nick was the first to suggest it was time to split up and that he and Chris needed to find the road. We discussed more about how long we thought it would take them to hike. We discussed the rest of us would split up with Bob, John & Kyle to get to the takeout. Chitwood and me would take Chris and Nick’s boats. We discussed that as soon as feasible the take out team would run the road with shuttle rigs until we found them or they us.

I think I could speak for everyone that we did not want to split the group but that paddling boats out was physically more feasible than dragging them all out. To the casual and inexperienced the question might be, Why not all walk out together and leave the boats? That is a reasonable question. Our past experiences have been that getting gear and equipment the next day is as big a challenge because the next day the boats could not be paddled out they would have to be dragged out which is physically daunting but not impossible. It was a judgment call.

As I think back I think the BEST thing we did as good as we could was to talk through everything including Nick in the discussion.

Our Pluses:
Group communication was good.
Group dynamic was good. Contributory, calm and determined.
Our patient, Nick was excellent. I could easily imagine anyone else writhing and screaming in agony and not able to compose themselves which could have easily deteriorated the psychology of the group and led us to rash decisions.
Group was methodical.
We successfully extracted all the boats. The only gear lost was Nick’s paddle.

Our Minuses:
Lack of knowledge of terrain and exit. We were guessing about where we were relative to the trail, road, and distance to takeout
When we split we did not ensure Chris and Nick had every bit of survival equipment available to them. Between us we had fire starter, other first aid kits, a headlamp and in our rush to get going we did not combine a cache of all that and ensure the two hikers had everything they might need if matters worsened.
I think we lingered too long trying to relocate the joint.

Our Luck:
The injury, albeit extremely painful, was not life threatening.
Weather was not ideal with it continuing to rain throughout the event but it was not terribly cold.
Daylight savings time afforded us roughly 4 hours of daylight once we decided to leave the boulder.
We had a health care professional to hike out with Nick.

[paddledog]

Nice report Shelby. We saw Nick at the Clear Creek take out the next day,
throwing stones in the river and getting Hunter set on the Shaeburg run.
A trooper indeed.

As not one there, but only thinking about the rescue from a readers point of view,
the live bait format of rescue may have been in order. Developed in Europe, it is almost
always used for the rescue on IV and V's for the exact reason described in this incident.
Like you said, the group was solid. When an "A" team member is in trouble, everything
is elevated.

Just an opinion from the armchair Beech creek runner.

[NickHobbs]

Thanks for all the support from everybody. Shelby summed it up, we did the best we could and it all worked out for me. Now off to the Mullberry to ride in a raft and drink some beer. Thanks again

[prophet]

^^that will help

curious, did you try holding some weight in the hand of the bad side and let it dangle for a while to let the muscle relax and slip back in?

[hollohead]

Nick is one tough sob, it's so good to hear all turned out as it did. Hope you heal up quick Nick.

[BMuu]

Nice job on the write up Shelby

I would like to thank Nick for roping me out of "Hunters Hole"

I was a little off that day due to non stop paddling for the previous 3 days but I'm glad it all turned out good in the end.

Beech creek was the best run I have been on in Arkansas by far!