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"So you think you'd survive" advice

Delete this post Submitted by mitch <grunes@yahoo.com> on 28/May/2015
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Message:

The Weather Channel has been running a TV show called "So You Think You'd Survive", which includes advice on surviving life threatening events.

One example was being thrown clear of a raft in whitewater.

This is partly from memory, but they said you should NOT try to swim to the side, or stay with or try to re-board the raft. Instead they said to point your feet downstream (something we were all taught, because legs can take shock better than heads, and they can more safely push you off rocks), and just drift until you reach a region with no major current - a rather passive response.

So - what do those of you who have rafted think - what is the right advice?

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My personal impression, from low level kayaking, which I admit isn't rafting, is that you are almost always better off staying with your boat. It keeps you afloat better than a PFD alone, and helps cushion shocks. Also that you should swim (usually breast stroke) at a diagonal towards one side. If you don't, you may stay in the current for miles, maybe for 10's or hundreds of miles - though I get some rivers are genuinely "pool and drop", to the extent that the current is rapid for only a few feet at a time.

I've done very little rafting. But I've seen a lot of experienced rafters re-boarding the raft - sometimes helping each other, sometimes not.

I'm also thinking that the show's recommended fairly passive response is unlikely to be particularly good in a hydraulic - which I assume you would find in almost any river serious enough to support whitewater rafting. You might stay in the hydraulic forever.

And that the best advice depends a lot on specific circumstances.


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