Wednesday

Today I got to see the other side of rescue work today. I was not scheduled to work a shift at Franklin today so I trained some gates for kayaking and ran a river with the team in the afternoon. We ran the Winnipesaukee ("Winny") River, which runs right through Franklin. It was a nice class III-IV run. We avoided the "Room of Doom", an old mill foundation that had water pouring into it and would trap you inside, and made it through the monster holes. However, Ali's boat went through a nasty one that ripped her out of her boat. The fast water sent her boat speeding downstream. Luckily she got safely out of the water, with only some scratches and a pair of bruised knees to show for it. Her boat sped down under the railroad bridge and right over the mill dam. A man working at the mill reported that he had seen "a red boat crash through the dam in about 20 pieces." We scouted the river for fragments of Ali's boat and finally found it in a strainer down by the fire department. We waded down to retrieve it and found it in one piece...but very torn up. When we reached the street we found that we had drawn quite an audience. The rescue truck, ambulance and rescue boat (as well as a few cop cars) were all waiting  and ready to pull people out of the dam. I can imagine how it would seem from their prospective. Seven kayakers, mill dam, people in the water, broken boats. Luckily everyone came out of it OK with only a slight subluxation of Ali's shoulder (but it is a very common injury for her). Still alive.