Date: 2013-06-14
From: Aqua-Blazing

To: Almost died on the river
Miles today: 0.0

I nearly died today. We had a great day up until the end. It was about 7:45pm when we approached Bixler bridge. The old low bridge is still left in the river. They've since built a new high bridge that boats can easily run under. The guidebook said in high waters we could bring the boat around the side of the bridge. So that's what we did. But as we approached the bridge, we realized we were going too fast and were going to hit the concrete. The momentum from hitting cause our bodies to rock back. This caused the boat to tip over. That's when the nightmare began. Our boat turned upside down and was sucked under the bridge. We were being sucked under too! I gripped the concrete with all my might just to hang on. I knew I didn't have enough strength to pull myself up out of it. The force of the sucking water was too strong. I looked over to see if Occupy was ok. He seemed to be in a worse situation than I was. His head was under water. All I could see was the smooth water pouring over him as he went under. I was helpless. I had 2 options. Let go and get sucked under water. Or pull myself to the edge of the bridge. I was about 7 feet away from the end. I figured I should try the latter first. I had just enough strength to hold on and get to the end where I could grip onto something lower and pull myself out of the water. God must've had His angels there to lift me out because I was exhausted by the end of it. As I was crawling over I noticed Helga, Occupy's German Shepherd, was nowhere to be found. I said, "Where's Helga?"Occupy immediately pulled himself out of the water and jumped in on the other side of the bridge. He saw the boat somewhat sticking out from under the bridge. Neither one of us know how he was able to pull the boat out by himself. Again, God lent us a hand. Helga was trapped under the boat. Her paws were holding the bar and her head was in the air pocket trapped under the boat. Occupy lifted the boat and released her. Praise God she was alright!Our next task was getting everything put back together. We pulled the boat over to the side of the river. Pretty much everything was tethered to the boat. None of our gear was lost. In fact, my stuff was still pretty dry. Even my iPhone went under with the boat and managed to stay dry!Once we got the boat flipped upright and everything back into the boat, we realized the paddles were gone. Crap. Not only that, but I lost one of my shoes. The guidebook almost got away, but I swam after it. Occupy went up to the road to see if be could flag down a car for help. While he was gone, I sat in the boat with Helga. I cried. The whole experience really shook me up. I banged up my knee pretty bad. I also cut my foot on something sharp trying to get on shore barefoot. He didn't have any luck at the road. We found a tree branch to paddle with and decided to float down the river to see if our stuff was there. As we floated along I spotted the shiny metal of one of our paddles. Thank God we found one! At that point, I was cold and scared. We stopped at the first place we saw to camp. We're in a cow pasture. There's poop everywhere. It smells. I hope the owner doesn't find us on his property. We're totally trespassing right now. Tomorrow we are going to get another paddle and continue our journey down the river. I'm praying I find my other shoe and we find a 2nd paddle. Also praying my knee and foot get better quickly.