She's Back
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After we finally made it through the last of the rapid - like a miracle - Carol popped up in the water (like a cork) right in front of the raft! Now, you have to picture the scene at the the river at this time: only one raft (there were a total of six in our group) goes over Bull Sluice at a time. The rest of the rafters are on the river bank watching each raft go through; the other guides have stretched a safety line across the river down stream. There is also a kayaker in the water as an extra safety precaution. As you can imagine, they were all looking on in horror when Carol fell out of the raft. Well, when she popped up in front of the raft, everyone started yelling, "There she is!" "Grab her!" "Pull her in!"
I was the closest to her and reached out immediately. I made a cardinal mistake, however, by extending the wrong end of the paddle to her. But luckily, she was close enough to grab the rope on the side of the raft and I could reach her with my free hand. "Grab her under her arms!" someone yelled from the shore. I dropped my paddle and did just that. Even though I had a good grip on her, I couldn't get enough leverage to pull her over the high, rounded side of the raft. Just then another rafter in our crew came up behind me, grabbed the back of her life jacket, and the two of us flipped her into the raft. And guess what... she still had her paddle in her hand! Carol took her place in the raft and started paddling as the guide shouted commands to get us to the river bank.
Carol had fallen out of the raft at the beginning of the run, and went down Bull Sluice under the raft!