Deadly Tales of the River - Got any?

I'll start with a few tales I've personally witnessed.

One fine summer day I was walking along the path at Belle Isle and saw a couple in an aluminum canoe starting to negotiate the rapids towards the center of the river. They clearly had zero experience in that water. Neither wore a life jacket. No auxiliary floatation in the boat. Nothing strapped down. Several kayakers saw what was coming and got their boats up on the nearby rocks in preparation for the inevitable spill. As the couple came down past Hollywood cemetery, they capsized. Their cooler and everything else they had went everywhere. Kayakers raced to help. The couple got their boat back and some of their stuff. Incredibly they held on to their paddles. But there was more to come. After they got back into the drained boat, they floated down a little more, just past the Dominion building, before they overturned again, losing all their remaining stuff. From there on out, they just swam/towed the boat until they were able to get to shore under the pedestrian bridge.

On another fine summer day, a friend and I were coming down from Pony Pasture to Reedy. In the distance, I could see someone in the center of the river, on the rocks, but no boat. Still, easily swimmable, right? As I got closer, the person saw me and started waving his arms. Eventually I get to the guy. He's standing ankle deep on a rock with water all around him. I ask what happened. He'd come down from Huguenot, in his brand new boat and decided to test his mettle by going as far as Reedy on his first voyage in the boat. That didn't go well. Because he had no experience at all, when he was challenged with a minor rapid, he capsized. He lost the boat (forever), his paddle and his phone. To top it all off, he couldn't swim. At all. Soooo, we talk to the guy and decide the only way to get him out is to get him to the South bank where he can walk back to Reedy where his friend may or may not be waiting for him. Luckily most of the water is pretty shallow, and we can walk the boats from rocks to islands, etc. Me on one side of the boat and him on the other. Not too bad until we get to the last crossing which is deeper and moving rapidly. As we're debating the best method to deal with this, a couple comes into view in a canoe. We wave them over, and they were nice enough to actually come up to us. We explain the situation and they allow the dude into their boat. Problem solved! Almost. As we continue down the river I get out a little ahead of the couple. Suddenly they go over a small drop in their big canoe and it's spillsville. The couple struggle to get up on the rocks, but incredibly the dude hugs the now water filled canoe and won't let go. He's not about to lose a second boat today!! I paddle over as fast as I can, and the couple has hopped over the rocks and caught their boat. After emptying the many, many gallons that a large canoe can hold, they resumed their paddle and made it to Reedy without further incident. Dude called his friend on my phone and he got a ride home. Every time I'm on the river I still look for his boat at the bottom (though it's probably in the bay by now.)

Another time, I was paddling with two friends in the big rapids right next to Belle Isle. I got through OK, but my friend got turned over by that monster wave about midway down the island. He tried to roll, but as he stated "That rock came straight for my face." He smashed his chin, but luckily didn't pass out, and bailed out of the boat. I finally got to him, and he was pale, bloody and disoriented. After awhile of resting and direct pressure, we decided to make our way to the 14th St takeout where the cars were, via the river, because the walk would have sucked. He ended up needing several stitches and still has the battle scar.

I was paddling by myself from Reedy to Belle Isle (intending to carry the boat back to Reedy.) It was a beautiful day, and the river was very low, so I shouldn't have had any problems (though paddling alone always has inherent risks.) On the last rapid before Dominion, my boat got stuck as I went down through a narrow channel. Instead of being smart, and just getting out of the boat, I tried to dislodge myself with the paddle extended a bit behind me like a lever. Eventually that worked, but as I'm attempting to paddle again in the slower water, my left arm seems to not be working very well. I look down and it seems like my shoulder is coming out of my upper left pectoral area. So I end up having to bail anyway, because I can't paddle at all. I get onto the beachy area just below Dominion and gingerly pull off my PFD to discover my shoulder in pain and dislocated. I imagine the drama of a river rescue and all the people at Belle Isle watching it unfold and decide it's time to relocate the shoulder. After a few contortions, I figure it out and the pain immediately stops. I'm able to get back to Belle Isle, just past the pedestrian bridge and haul the boat out and hike it back to Reedy, where the van is parked. After several more dislocations due to the damage, I eventually needed surgery on that shoulder and I have a permanent wariness of doing anything too strenuous to it. I seldom paddle whitewater anymore because I don't want to risk reinjury.

I saved the worst for last. Not a personal story, but one recounted to me by a friend who lived in Oregon Hill in the late 90s-early 2000s. He was walking his dog along the Belle Isle path next to the river when he sees two guys in a canoe coming down the south side of the river, where the big rapids are. They capsize. All their gear goes everywhere. They make it to shore, but the boat gets washed downstream. As they're catching their breath, my friend asks if they're OK. After awhile one of the dudes decides to try to recover some of their stray gear, which is still floating in eddys nearby. He climbs out on the rocks and as he's reaching for his stuff, he falls in and gets pinned to the rock. He's basically hugging the rock while the water pressure pushes him against it. He can't do anything but struggle to keep his head above water. His friend jumps out on to the rock and grabs his arm, but can't pull him up, due to the water pressure and friction of the rock. The guy in the water is slowly getting sucked down by the water. My friend sees what's happening and jumps out to help. Two grown men pulled on this guy and couldn't get him up or around to the side of the rock. As my friend is holding this guys hand, the guy's head slipped under the water and in less than two minutes he was dead. My friend has a hard time telling that story over a decade later.

So, in summary: The river can fuck you up and will kill you if you don't respect it's power. Be careful out there.

Definitely has to the severed head of the racist, HIV positive, gay man, they found on a bridge. You can't make that shit up!

I was running from Pony Pasture to Reedy Creek. Just after Choo Choo is where we usually stop to have some food and another libation. Guy comes running up and says his girlfriend got caught in the current and can't get to shore. We paddle out to a purple haired obviously intoxicated girl in a bikini. She grabs on to the back of my kayak and I drag her back to shore as she is just complete dead weight. Neither her boyfriend or her offered us any if whatever cocktail of alcohol and drugs they were on, which should be customary. They did say thank you though, so that was nice.

I file a report with the James River Association whenever I do that run. This report included the words "river bimbo."

In a previous job, probably in the late 90's, I drove a van full of science teachers right down to the the fish ladder at the north end of Bosher's Dam. We were met by two Game & Inland Fisheries wardens who were to explain the workings of the ladder, why it was there, etc.

I don't remember how it came up, but they told a story about a previous trip when they were out in a small powered boat and saw a kayaker caught in the hydraulic at the fall of the dam. They managed to rescue him just in time--lying on the bottom of their boat, he grasped one of their ankles and said "thank you."

A friend who used to work for the rafting company on the James told me how he found a dead body in the trees. Said it was a few days after a flood, the river had finally dropped below the (I think) 9' permit required stage, and they were finally back on the river sorting out stuff. He said he saw a guy hanging out on a branch overhanging the river. So he goes up to the guy and tries to get his attention, but he looks like he passed out from a bender the night before or something. So my friend reaches out and grabs his dangling arm to wake him up....and the damn thing practically falls off the torso. He obviously freaks the fuck out, calls the cops, and not too much later decides that the job was no longer for him.

This is a list of deaths on the river in Richmond from 2007-2011, though not all are drownings.

Two things. Back in '02-'03 some friends and I saw a "kid" (18-19) fall from the quarry cliffs climbing wall and hit the ground hard. He was not in good shape. Paramedics came. don't know if he lived or not.

Some friends and I tubed from pony pasture, and decided we'd just float to belle isle, get out on the north side, and walk back home. Didn't work out that way. We ended up on the dam by Hollywood, thinking we could backwards paddle over to belle. I remember people on the beach standing and yelling, waving us back to not try it. We floated and stumbled from rock to rock back to belle isle. Even knee deep, the water pushed hard enough to alter your steps and yank off shoes. We lost a our tubes and shoes, got cut the hell up and used a human chain and some logs to pluck the last of us off of the rocks. Bad idea. We walked back to vcu burnt and bloodied and tubeless. Lesson learned.

Was in a meeting at work in a conference room on the 17th flor of the James Center. Watched a guy jump from the 9th street bridge into the river. Worst meeting ever.

Eventually found out he survived the fall but died on the way to the ER after paramedics and rescue rafts came.

In June of 2010 myself and a pretty good sized group of friends were out on Archer Island down off 42nd St. We had been out there drinking and grilling for a few hours, and started to pack up when the weather started to turn. So then we hear sirens, a lot of them, and much closer than River Road. We get across the wide stream area separating the island from the paths and there are a LOT of police. They're doing CPR on a younger guy. It starts to rain, they tell us to move on, and we do. Back on the railroad tracks there's an ambulance and a fire department pickup.

Turns out the guy had been drinking and messing around in the stream you have to cross to get to Archer, and had busted his head. His friends told the medics they were at Belle Isle. Took them about a half hour to figure out where the guys actually were. We had three lifeguards with us who might have been able to do something if those people had yelled or anything.

Moral of the story, know where you are, and yell for help if something goes to shit and you don't know what you're doing.

Great question!

My best friend fishes by the Z-Damn regularly. He says in the summer he sees tubers try to go through the chute fairly often. Mostly young kids that get too far in front of their intoxicated parents before they realize how close they are to the damn, but a lot times college kids, and drunks. He says most of the college kids and adults are heavy enough that their momentum shoots them down the chute and through the under current(?). When he sees kids go through the chute they are light and the slope down doesn't build up enough speed or momentum to take them over the under current, and they get stuck. He always reacts quickly. He stands about 10-15 from them, and shouts to be calm and stay still and eventually it'll spit them out. He says he has seen two kids (one high schools aged, the other early middle school aged) freak out and jump off and try to swim, and both were immediately sucked under, where they get sucked down, and churned around at the bottom of the falls, until the under current decides to let them go. One of the kids he saw get sucked under was pulled out about ten minutes after getting sucked in, the other was never found. Every time he has to help someone through the chute he curses the negligent parents out, and tells the drunks how dumb they are for going through the chute. The two kids that we saw go under really fuck with his head. Not sure why he fishes there. I guess he goes where he knows they'll bite. Thin line between dedication, and obsession I guess.

Not a drowning, but one day I was heading North on the Nickel Bridge. As I am passing the Evelyn Byrd/Westover Hills Blvd intersection I see fire trucks parked on Riverside Dr. As I am driving across the bridge I see 5-7 fire fighters walking on the Southbound lane of the bridge looking over the rail, looking for something. As I get to the toll I see a police cruiser pull up, and block all southbound traffic, and an officer get out and direct traffic to turn around. I asked the toll booth lady what was going on, and she said it was probably a jumper. She said that people jump off that bridge all of the time, and that someone had recently hung themselves off it. The next day I was driving over the bridge, going to work, and I saw fresh flowers tied to the rail about halfway down. Pretty sure I missed a jumper by a couple of minutes.

Also I used to live on 42nd and New Kent Ave. The RFD on FH Ave uses 42nd Street to get down to the Reedy Creek boat launch to fish people out. I would say 3-5 times per week in the summer I would hear sirens go flying down 42nd to either rescue or recover a person from the River in that vicinity.

A guy I went high school with fell off the railroad trestle. Some friends and I used to go up there all the time and do some crazy shit. I don't know how they didn't fall but we were up there once and these 2 dudes were kicking each other and trying to hit each other with sticks while standing on the thing circled in this picture:

http://i.imgur.com/URQquQr.jpg

We used to hear stories about the RR police coming after you for being up there and shooting rock salt, never saw em.

I bet u/paddlin84 has seen some shit.