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In honor of the October 2006 Blogging for Books scary theme, I thought I’d write about the scariest moment of my entire life. It’s not about Halloween or ghosts, but it just so happens that this was also the only time I’ve ever thought I was going to die.

Back in the summer of 1997 I was 21 years old and doing biological research in a lab in Upstate New York (if you’re thinking needle stab or other dangerous biological accident, I might as well disappoint you now – it’s not that outrageous). As part of this summer program, the 20 or so students engaged in research throughout the university would get together on Saturdays to do something educational or entertaining. Usually it was informational sessions about getting into graduate school or a visit to a museum, but one bright sunny day we were to take a bus to a nearby whitewater rafting company.

Ironically, I almost missed the bus for the adventure that morning. I had friends in the area and had spent the night at their place. We’d played cards and had some drinks and although they’d promised to set an alarm, a drunken haze had descended upon the house and it never went off. I awoke with a start and woke up my friends to give me a ride back to school. I was worried about missing the bus, not knowing that I was hurrying my friends so that I could stare death in the face.

The whitewater rafting trip was advertised as a 7 mile adventure that had class III and IV rapids. For those of you who haven’t been whitewater rafting (i.e. the sane), rapids are categorized from I to VI. Category I is described as “fast moving water with riffles and small waves” while category VI are almost always deadly. Rapids in categories I through III are typically safe for swimmers, while category IV rapids become more dangerous.

We’re all pretty excited to get started, but before we do there’s a brief instructional lecture about listening to the guide, about the rapids and the dangers, and what to do in the event of an emergency. To this day the scariest part of this talk was being told to raise your feet and aim them in front of you, because if they get caught in a crevice you’re done for (of course they didn’t say it like this b/c they need our business, but it was implied). Then we don our lifejackets, our wonderful life-giving lifejackets, and get into the boats.

I get a good seat, about halfway from the front and on the outside. It’s a good spot, not much responsibility except to lean when I’m told, and a good chance of lots of splashing. The trip starts out pretty slow as we work our way out into the water and down the river. We practice our leaning and paddling a little, and the tour guide declares us ready to go.

For the first half of the trip we encounter some pretty cool rapids and manage to get pretty wet while having a great time. There are about 8 of us on this raft and we talk and laugh and are thoroughly enjoying the trip.

Until it happens.

We’re approaching a group of rapids and the guide wants us to enter them in a certain orientation (front forward and aiming towards a certain target) for the safest passage. We’re leaning as directed and he’s paddling to aim us in the right direction. Unfortunately our orientation is off just a little bit and instead of going through the rapid front-forward the raft is slightly off-center. The rapids push the raft into a large rock rather than around it, and the raft tips up on its side throwing me off the raft and into the rapids.

It happened so fast and it was so unexpected that I didn’t have any time to analyze the situation. Instead it was just a series of thoughts that flashed in my head. My first thought as I’m being thrown is that my head will hit a rock. My next thought is to swim up to get air. I didn’t have time to take a deep breath before I went in, so I need to get up for air as soon as I can.

And that is when I realize that I’m being churned in the rapid like clothing in a dryer. As the rapid passes over the rocks it forms a barrel-like current where water is rolled over and over. I didn’t know this at the time, but I did know that I wasn’t getting to the surface. Simultaneously I also realize that there’s another person in the dryer with me! Not only is there someone in there, but we’re extremely close together. In fact, we are each using the other’s body in an attempt to get to the surface. All I can remember are arms and legs flailing. I’m certainly not proud to admit that I was reaching for the surface, and perhaps it’s an exaggeration to say that we were “using” each other to get to the surface. At that moment, when you’re fighting for air and the rapids are churning you to oblivion, the mammalian brain instinct is to reach out and grab for safety and the surface. That’s what we are both trying to do. Here I am, this 21-year-old supposedly chivalrous man, using another person to get to the surface. Not only that, but as I’ll soon find out it’s a woman in there with me. Maybe chivalry is dead!

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity (but was probably only 30-60 seconds), the rapids spit us both out. Breathing air feels really good, but now I have to assess the situation. A few brief seconds shows that the lifejacket does indeed keep me at the surface now that I’m out of the dryer, and I’m free to look around for rescue or a way out. I see that I’m floating downstream towards more rapids, but the raft is headed my way. My biggest worry now are my feet which are raised practically into the air for fear of getting them caught in a rock and forever disappearing beneath (at least until me and the foot rotted away from each other!). And I’m almost embarrassed to say that as I’m floating down the river, practically 100% free from danger, I stop to think about dying. I didn’t say the things I wanted to say to people, I didn’t do this, I didn’t do that.

When they pulled me back into the raft, my heart was pounding away. I was still pretty damn scared at that point, but luckily we were almost to the end of the adventure. Before long we were all drying off back at the lodge and telling our stories.

After all was said and done, it was a pretty life-affirming experience. I’ve told the story more than once to woo a crowd and gotten some good laughs out of it. And I get to tell people about the time I almost died. But I swear to God I was never able to look that girl in the eye again.