Sejje.net

On August the 5th (2006), my girlfriend Alicia and I were on a vacation at Ginnie Springs. It’s about twenty minutes north of Gainesville, Florida. It’s a place where there’s several natural springs flowing up out of the ground, and they run into the Santa Fe river. Scuba divers come from all over to dive into the caverns there.

We had spent the previous night in our tent, and on this day we were enjoying the water. We had rented two tubes to float down the river. You walk through the park to the spring, where you climb into the icy cold water and then the spring feeds into the river and you can float down for thirty minutes or so and get out in the last spring on the property. The distance is not that far, but the river current is slow and so it takes a while.

Alicia and I were climbing into the cold spring water for our second float down the river. We both jumped on the top of our tubes so as not to be submerged in the (icy) water, and only my butt was wet. We used our hands to do little scoops and propel ourselves down the spring towards the river.

Approaching us, walking up the spring, were two girls, probably 24 or 25, Indian girls. There was some kind of reunion or get-together for them (Indians), and we had seen many groups. These girls were calling to someone…they were looking over our heads towards the bank and shouting. Neither of us could understand them; Alicia asked me what they were saying. It sounded like they were not speaking English. We floated closer and closer to them, and I thought I made out the word “help” at the end of one shout. When we got very close, they asked us:

“Do you know swimming?”

“Yes,” we both replied.

“Someone needs help.” One girl gestured towards the river.

We began paddling more quickly--the distance to the river was not far--and had gone a few yards when someone from the bank called out to us not to worry, a man had been pulled from the water, but was on the bank now. I felt relieved. We kept paddling and went around the corner and, sure enough, there was a man sitting on the bank being consoled. A bystander was rubbing his back and he was shaking to some degree.

I looked at Alicia, and she nodded her head in the direction of the man on the bank, as if I should do something about it. I’m a certified lifeguard and also trained as a first responder in CPR. Probably my First Aid certification has run out by now, and I’m not sure about the other two things. Regardless, the man on the bank was clearly conscious and healthy, and to me just looked shaken up. Maybe he was in “shock,” although I’m not sure of the symptoms anymore and I would have no idea how to treat it for the few minutes until the paramedics arrived, assuming someone had called 911. “First responder” CPR is basically the same as community CPR, but we learn how to administer oxygen and how to use an AED. The motions of CPR are the same regardless.

“He’s okay,” I said. “He’s breathing and everything. I just know CPR, I can’t really do anything for him.”

She nodded. We were still floating there just at the mouth where the spring enters the river. Some people a little upstream were shouting, two young men. One was standing on a tree that overhangs the river. People had been jumping from there into the water all day. He was hanging onto a branch and leaning out over the tree. The other man was overweight, and standing about waist deep in the water.

“Goggles! Get us some Goddamn goggles!” They shouted this several times in the direction of the bank, and the man on the tree was peering into the water.

“We can’t see shit!” It was true. The water all around the bank here was clouded up, a dark red, maroon color. It looked like the bottom was some deep-colored clay. It covered an area about the size of a large living room, from the tree to the mouth of the stream, and extended into the current about thirty feet, until the water was maybe twelve feet deep. The bottom had been stirred up somehow, and totally obscured everything in the water.

It was clear that these men were looking for something, and by the panic in their voices, I assumed it was a person. But the man was fine; he was sitting right there on the bank. Something didn’t add up, and I took the plunge into the cold water. The river water from upstream is warm, and it blends the spring water into a more acceptable temperature. I pushed my tube toward Alicia.

There was an Indian woman standing in the water about to her waist. Someone was standing behind her, almost supporting her. She was crying visibly, but not loudly. She was standing still.

I swam to the fat man, and he stared blankly at me; he was obviously drunk. Most of the park visitors were.

“Is there someone in the water?”

He kept staring blankly at me, and then looked to the bank and shouted again for goggles.

I repeated myself. “Is there someone else in the water!?”

“Yes,” came the reply.

So the nightmare began. From the time we came around the corner there had been no drowning people visible. Nobody was in the water in that area except myself, Alicia, the overweight man, and at some point while I was talking to the overweight man, a man in a wet-suit arrived.

He was certainly one of the scuba divers there to explore the caves. He was a bald man with a large nose, and probably forty-five years old.

I began to wade around in the dark water, arms outstretched and feeling with my feet. The bottom was mushy; soft sand mixed with leaves and other rotting plant material. Once my heart skipped a beat when I stepped on something that wasn’t mushy, but it was a tree trunk. I remember how I felt looking for the body, and it was like I didn’t really think I would find it. Logically I knew there was someone in the water somewhere, but I didn’t believe in my heart that we would find him.

Some goggles arrived. Someone from the bank tossed them to the fat man. He relayed them to me, as if he never wanted them in the first place. I relayed them to the scuba diver. I was in the clouded water; they wouldn’t extend my visibility more than a few inches, and anyway I was in the shallows. The man in the wet-suit was working the edge of the murk. He didn’t have any equipment except his wet-suit and now goggles.

I heard someone ask “Where? Where did he go under?” I looked up, and they were asking the Indian woman. She let out a wail and slowly raised her arm. It was shaking, and she pointed in the direction of the tree. I had been working the area closer to the mouth of the spring, downstream from the tree, and so I moved to where she pointed. So did the fat man, but he seemed to me to just stand there.

Quickly we prodded the area near where she had pointed, and it was obvious the man was not there. I moved back to where I was and began working the deeper water--I had worked all of the shallows. I could not see into the water, so I began to “pencil dive,” feet first straight down. I would feel around with my feet in a large circle, and then surface for a breath and move to a new spot.

I must have done ten or twelve pencil dives when the diver threw me the goggles. I was near the fringe of the murky water now, downstream from where he had been looking, which was near the tree. I began to put them on, and I saw some people watching us, floating by in their tubes out in the current. They were sipping on their beer. Apparently Bud Light was the choice of the weekend.

I almost had the face mask on when a boy , probably nineteen or twenty, surfaced even further downstream from where I was, at the very end of the murky water, and very near where the spring fed into the river. He had on a face mask and snorkel, and I had not seen him to that point.

“Here!” He shouted. He looked directly at me, probably because I was nearest to him. Quickly I made my way a few more feet while I put on the mask, and then I dove at an angle towards the bottom under where the boy was. He also began swimming down.

I got out of the murky red water and the water became green. It was full of some kind of floating algae or something; it was like pea soup. I could see probably five feet ahead, and I couldn’t see the bottom, which was probably 12-16 feet. The green algae was swirling around my face mask. I kept swimming and swimming, waiting to see the bottom. Instead, I saw him. It. The body on the bottom. It was sort-of kneeling face down, with the head pointing with the current, slightly downstream. He was Indian also, and he was wearing red trunks with a yellow square patch directly in the middle of the belt-line on his back. His arms were sort of hanging out, the way a little kid's arms do when they have floaties on. Like a scarecrow, but angling down at the elbow. The boy with the snorkel beat me to the bottom, and he began to pull the man by the armpits. Not a second later I was within reach, and I grabbed the man by the waist of his swimsuit and pulled him straight up. I don’t remember if there’s a certain method to pulling bodies off of the bottom during a rescue, but this one was quite effective. Perhaps because the boy was helping, but regardless, he felt light and it was very easy to pull him up.

I flipped him on his back, with my left arm under his left armpit and across his chest. I began towards the shore, and I could see the boy was trying to help me, although I could not feel him making any difference. As soon as we reached the surface, the body was no longer light. I was trying to keep his head out of the water, but after each kick in my side stroke, when I regrouped for the next kick, my head was going under and probably his as well. I was aware of people shouting “keep his head out of the water,” namely the fat drunk man: later I would wonder what kind of idiot would say that. Obviously the man has been down for a long time. Obviously his lungs are full of water. I kicked and kicked, and more men came to help, men I had not seen until now, men who were not helping to look. One man in particular I remember, he was probably thirty and very thick and muscular. He could probably out-pull an ox. I kept kicking and they were all pulling and pushing the body with me, and some of them held the man’s head up out of the water.

Finally we got very near the shore, to where I could touch the bottom. There was a tree submerged just under the surface, maybe an inch or two under the water. I was still underneath the man, and he had to go over the tree. I began to pull him up over, but I was too slow; the rest of the men were not going to allow this (me being slow), and the body kept going when I did not. I became pinned under him on the tree and I was scraping my back on the bark. I managed to slip out, and the men continued with the body to shore. One man fell into the water, and I asked if he was alright.

The men put the body just out of the water onto the bank, his feet still dangling in the water. Immediately a man jumped on and began CPR. With the first breath he administered, the victim vomited. It was yellow and looked like egg drop soup. He worked for a few seconds as I approached the bank.

By now, several other men had climbed out of the water onto the bank, and they moved the man further from the water into a slightly open space under the canopy. The river is a “scenic” river, and has most of the native growth. It was basically a wet hammock, with canopy and open ground. When they moved him, some of the vomit came forth and spilled onto his belly and shorts, and around his mouth.

The man giving CPR was wearing a strange bathing suit. It looked like a skirt, but was cut up the sides along his legs. Probably he had a Speedo underneath. The diver in the wet suit jumped up beside him and began giving compressions. I did not see anyone check for a pulse, although they may have while I was still climbing out.

By now, a small crowd had gathered, including all the men involved with the rescue, some more men that had gathered, and some women that had gathered. Several were Indian. I’m not sure if they just happened up there as we pulled the man out, or if they had been watching and not helping. I remember seeing people along the shore while we looked, but I did not see their faces.

There was some debate among the crowd as to what the proper steps were in CPR, mostly about the ratio of compressions to breaths. “Five to two!” “No, fifteen to three!”

I remembered enough to know that at the time of my certification, the Red Cross standard was fifteen compressions and then two rescue breaths. My instructor also told us during our class that the standard was soon to be thirty compressions for every two breaths, as they had discovered that pumping the blood was vastly more important than giving breaths.

And I said so. “Thirty to two,” I told the man giving breaths. To me, he seemed to be in charge of the CPR, while the other man was doing the compressions when he was told, and stopping when the man decided to give a breath.

“They know what they’re doing,” a couple of people shouted at me from the crowd. I didn’t respond aloud, but I thought “so do I.” At least in some instances.

The man didn’t respond to me. He began to give another breath, and I watched as the victim’s cheeks puffed out. I asked the man “are your breaths going in?” I remember from training that sometimes we had to tilt and re-tilt the head several times before we achieved an acceptable airway. The man did not seem to be tilting the head back very far, but he responded in some manner, I think a nod, that his breaths were going in.

Again some people were mad about my giving advice, and told me that the men “knew what they were doing.”

The man giving compressions was listening to the loudest among the crowd, and perhaps the man giving breaths, and doing only five compressions. We didn’t know each other, but he knew I had been out looking for the body. I tapped him on the arm and he looked at me, and I told him “thirty. Do thirty compressions.” He nodded and began doing more compressions. I’m not sure why he listened to me instead of anyone else, but he began doing as many as he could in-between breaths.

They continued CPR, and all I could think about was the airway. I couldn’t see the chest rising, although sometimes I couldn’t watch. The victim’s face seemed almost horizontal to me, and I remember from class that it was almost a forty-five degree angle. I looked at Alicia, who was standing near me, and I said “I don’t know if the breaths are going in.”

She mentioned the vomit, asking “aren’t they supposed to turn him on his side?” I couldn’t remember, but even the thought was fleeting as I was more concerned with the tilt of the head.

A man showed up and pushed his way through the crowd. He was an extremely obese man, and he was wearing the blue collared shirt that signified he was a Ginnie Springs staff member. He came prepared, with a bag full of medical supplies and what not. He was probably certified the same as I am, as a first responder. He got out a safety mask and bag-valve, and gave a couple of breaths that way. He appeared to be frustrated, as if they weren’t going in. The man in the tribal bathing suit said “let me do another breath! I know I can get it in!”

I have more than a little respect for that man. The victim had vomited at least once more at this point, and vomit was all around his mouth. The man was not deterred and was still able and willing to give rescue breaths. I’m certain that I could not have given one without vomiting myself. I almost vomited watching him; my reaction to seeing or smelling vomit is to vomit myself.

I looked back to Alicia and asked silently, “Where are our tubes?” They were rentals, and expensive ones. She was standing on the bank with everyone else, and floating in the murky water were several tubes, but they were all pink. We had a blue one and a pink one.

She told me the snorkel boy had taken them downriver to save the daughter of one of these men, who was floating downstream on a tube of her own. I nodded my approval, and looked back to the victim.

The obese man had inserted an airway into the victim’s throat, which is a plastic piece designed to keep the tongue from falling back and covering the airway. I heard him talking to someone, almost yelling to talk above the crowd:

“I need the AED. It’s in my truck.”

A girl responded “okay!” and took off in the direction of the spring, where there was a parking area and pavilion.

The obese man was assembling--and shortly thereafter began to use--a device which was a pump to suck out debris from the victim’s mouth and throat. It was a little bottle with a lever that pumped the material through a little straw. He stuck it down in the victim’s throat several times and recovered a less than substantial amount of what looked like water, maybe three ounces.

He was still standing; I never saw him kneel next to the body or begin to take over. The tribal-suited man was still giving breaths using his mouth, over the airway. He didn’t use the pocket mask or bag-valve. Memories of my training passed through my head about breathing through the mask.

I looked up the path leading to the parking lot, hoping to see the girl returning with the AED. An AED is a portable versions of the “shock paddles” that you see in movies, where they shock the heart back into an acceptable rhythm. Instead I saw a man in uniform.

I was standing next to Alicia, and I told her “here comes an EMT.” She looked also, and the man was walking briskly, but rather carefully, toward the scene. He didn’t have a bag. I envisioned EMTs holding a bag. He got closer and I saw a star on his outfit, the deputy’s star.

I was very disappointed. “It’s just a police officer.” I’m not positive, but I think that police officers just have the same degree of training as myself and the obese man. He approached the victim, and if he said anything, I didn’t hear it. He kept his hands near his belt, maybe fingering some of his equipment.

A woman had kneeled next to the man giving rescue breaths. She appeared to be holding the head of the victim, perhaps keeping the head tilted. I’m fairly certain she was drunk. She had been saying earlier “fifteen to three” talking about compressions, which was closer to accurate, but was still not correct.

She commanded the officer: “You need to get these people out of here and give these men room to work.”

The officer said “Okay, everybody, give them some room.”

Everyone in the crowd shuffled back a few inches, and the woman was not pleased.

“These men need room!” In reality, they did not. The crowd was standing probably four to five feet back in all directions. The only room you need is to lay the body down and kneel, and perhaps a foot or two to maneuver in. Certainly they had room. However, I’m not a fan of people who stand around trying to get in on some drama at anyone’s expense.

The officer instantly responded to the drunken woman. “Everyone get out of here! NOW! If you're not working on the body, leave!” It was clear to me that he was not going to reason with me. I wasn’t physically helping on the body, and hadn’t been verbally helping for a minute or more, at least since the obese man had shown up, and so I began to retreat to the water. Alicia came with me.

As I was wading into the water, I heard the officer threaten to arrest someone. The man who responded appeared to be half black and half white. He had his hair in short dreadlocks or braids, tied back in a pony tail, and was probably among the most drunk of the bystanders. “Chill out man. We’re just trying to help.” This was a lie, outright. He had been standing in the back, talking almost jokingly about the proceedings, and had made no move except to open his mouth or raise his beer to his lips.

A man approached the officer and told him that he was a nurse, and asked if there was anything he could do to help. The officer was still a bit huffy; he said “not unless one of those people asks you to” and gestured towards the CPR crew. The man replied that he would wait “right over there” and to let him know if they needed anything. As far as I know, nurses are trained to the same level as I am--one was in my training class.

We retreated to some tubes. We now had two pink ones, and we pushed off. Slowly the current caught us and began pushing us downstream. Still on the bank nearby was the first man who was rescued. He was still being consoled, although not by the same woman as before. Now there was a man on either side, and on his right was the strong, muscular man who had helped pull the body from the river. I saw the young, strong, tattooed man pull the middle-aged Indian man’s head to his shoulder and hold it there. He laid his head on top and patted the man on the back.

As we floated, we kept watching the scene. Some people were slightly ahead of us in the current, a large group of tubers, maybe twelve of them. They were talking about what happened, speaking disparagingly about the Indian man for being in the water if he wasn’t able to swim. I could see the man giving compressions still pumping furiously, valiantly. At some point the girl returned with the AED, and I could hear the obese man’s commands:

“Clear! I’m clear! Everybody clear! SHOCKING!” He had to stop momentarily as one man was apparently still touching or very close to the body. I could see the body when he yelled “shocking“, but it didn’t appear to move like in the movies.

Finally we heard some sirens and the EMTs arrived. We saw them carry the body away on a white stretcher.

As we floated downstream, we could still hear the shouting of some people who had been upstream and in view of the whole scene. They were swinging from a rope swing on the opposite side of the river, hooting and hollering, oblivious to the struggle of two men in the river.

My thoughts became clearer, and I began to question myself. I was probably the most well-trained person on the scene initially, why hadn’t I acted in a better manner? I should have made sure 911 was called immediately; instead I assumed it was (and I’m not sure still). I should have shouted for ten or twenty seconds initially to get more people in the water searching for the body, or I should have had Alicia do that. Instead, we wasted precious time looking for the body with just a handful of men. Possibly I should have taken over CPR when I climbed onto the bank, or assisted. I could not have given rescue breaths with the vomit on the man, and I don’t know any more about CPR than your average certified person. But maybe I should have corrected the things that I felt were being done wrong, mainly the airway.

Even if I had, care would have been at best acceptable. I did not think to check a pulse until afterwards. I did not think to turn the victim when he vomited. I did not think about the proper way to give compressions. Alicia thinks the man giving them was giving them in the wrong area and not with enough force or frequency. It never crossed my mind, but thinking back, she may have been right.

Regardless, I question my response ability in an emergency. Clearly hindsight is 20/20, but I feel like things could have been done better.

The time frame on the events was probably one minute from when the girls told us until I began looking for a body, two minutes of looking (it seemed like longer to me, maybe eight minutes, but Alicia says no more than two minutes and she had a better perspective), 3 minutes from surfacing the body until the obese man arrived, and five minutes or more from then until EMTs arrived. I’m not sure what the response time is to a place like that; it seemed fairly “remote.” We are not sure how long the man was underwater before we came around the corner and began to search.

I researched drownings to a small degree and discovered that the longest recorded submerged victim who survived was a child in icy cold water that was under for seventy minutes. In normal circumstances someone is dead beyond recovery after three minutes. Maybe the man never had a chance.

We finished floating down the river and went to take a shower. We took back our tubes, and later had dinner and made a campfire. We spoke to nobody else the rest of the day, because we had chosen a campsite that was “off the beaten path.” Nobody recognizes me as part of the rescue team; probably most of the visitors were unaware of the entire incident. The next morning an employee was putting some trash in a dumpster. I approached her and asked what happened with the man.

“I’m not sure how he’s doing. I think he’s okay, but I haven’t heard for sure. Well, the older man. Of course, you heard that the younger man died at the scene.”

It was what I expected, but I had prayed and hoped throughout the night that I would not have a death on my conscience. I’m not sure if I acted inappropriately, or if I was obliged by my training to do anything that I failed to do. However, I (or anyone else) could have done some things that may have saved that man’s life.

I cannot remember anyone yelling for help besides the two girls, and they did not seem distressed. They seemed like they were yelling at a certain person trying to get their attention. The boys yelling for goggles should have been yelling for help, screaming about a man in the water. So should I have been once I found out there was a body in the water that nobody could see.

All in all, I’m proud for what I did and ashamed of what I could have done, but didn’t. I don’t blame or question my willingness to help; I would have done anything to save that man’s life. I just wish I could have performed better and maybe there’d be a man to thank me for it.