Death on Buffalo River

[sig]

I saw this mentioned on the Arkansas Times blog...

http://www.fox16.com/content/news/state ... TZmdA.cspx

[Cadron Boy]

Even as I extend my condolences to her family, friends and loved ones -- it seems I am also rubber necking a bit to offer a slightly different version of the events:

HARRISON, AR-- Ms. Sally Sairs, an active 79-year-old woman from Vermont died Saturday in a kayaking accident on the Buffalo River. Caven Clark with the Buffalo National River, the woman, Ms. Sally Sairs, drowned Saturday afternoon when her head struck a tree and her kayak overturned just upstream from the Ozark Campground.

A witness, who was a friend of the victim, told investigators the two were kayaking together when Sally hit her head on a limb and soon thereafter capsized and was held underwater for a long time due to current pushing up against her kayak -- she remained there for several minutes before her friend could reach the kayak. Sadly and despite her best efforts, her friend was not able to return the kayak to an upright position or get Sally's head above water. Eventually, other boaters floating down the river saw the scene and helped in getting the kayak upright and removing the victim.

Investigators believe Sally an was under water for anywhere from 40 to 45 minutes before help could arrive. National Park Service Rangers and Newton County Search and Rescue helped recover the body. According to Clark, the river was running at 588 cubic feet per second.

FYI: According to available sources -- Sally has spent a lot of time in a kayak over the years and was quite active for her age having led many trips for the Vermont Hiking Club over rough terrain in the past few years. It is not known if she drowned or if the blow to the head was cause of death -- no autopsy is planned. I'd like to think she died doing what she loves best on one of the most beautiful rivers in the country.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? Doesn't seem to be -- nothing more than "when it is time, it is time".

[sig]

Sounds like a strainer being described by a reporter who doesn't understand strainers. So sad.

[Cadron Boy]

That was my first thought too given the comment "was held underwater for a long time due to current pushing up against her kayak " -- but Ithere is nothing more than that to suggest there was any strainers involved -- so we may have made such an assumption prematurely based upon our personal experiences. So I then started to think how hard it might be for Sally's friend, also presumed to be an elderly lady, in the throes of a panic situation to right another kayak set adrift, pushed by the current and containing a lifeless body. Not an easy task. So perhaps if there is a lesson to be learned -- it is to simply think/practice uprighting a kayak under such adverse conditions.

Tangent: I'd like to think Sally had already bade goodbye before the kayak capsized.

Once while in Culebra Puerto Rico an elderly man attending a family reunion down the beach from us walked out into the surf waist deep where he stood and peered out over the water while drinking a beer. All at once he dropped like a rock and failed to surface -- my father and I ran out and dragged him up onto the beach and began CPR to no success. My father being the sole physician on the island declared him dead on the spot presumably to a massive heart attack stating he was "dead before he hit the water". The man's two sons came up to us claiming their father could not have had a better death: with family with a beer in his hand on the one beach in the world that was most special to him. And as the Puerto Ricans do so often -- they pulled him into the shade and continued the party as if nothing had happened -- singing his praises and giving him his final roast as they past about more beer. As the song goes "our life is but a plan...."

[Dis147]

A friend and I arrived at the Ozark access just prior to the Park Service and Newton County S&R, what a somber start to our float to Carver. Kayaking at 79 inspirational, but still a sad day. Float Safe.