Today I witnessed the most scary situation in all my years of being on a river, ocean or lake. Maybe make it any time during my 67 years on this earth and I felt so helpless.
I decided to look at the river late morning to see if water visibility had improved from the latest rain and high water. When I looked at it around 11 the visibility was around a foot so I thought it will improve as the day goes on so I went for a coffee at Vedder Crossing and read the paper. I saw Milo there with his fishing partner and had a good visit before they headed to another flow. I said come back later as I think it should improve to a fishable condition later in the day, I gave him a tip of where he should try a few casts if they did.
Then while having coffee The Carp dropped in and we had an enjoyable fishing chat for 15 minutes. One of the benefits of fishing, you meet some great people over the years building life long friendships, even though most are Canuck fans. It is now getting close to 1 now and I decide to try a spot where I had lost a couple of fish earlier in the season with the idea of heading to another spot, lower down, to end the day.
The water has improved a bit more from when I first looked at it and ran into Joe when I first reach the river, "plenty good enough" he says. What Joe says is good enough for me too as he catches his share of steelhead each year and always freely shares information. I always treasure our talks too. He always has success for steelhead on just wool something I seldom use. I also talk to another angler and said he had rolled one a few minutes before I arrived. Very few anglers out, I guess they thought, like I did that the river would not recover as quickly as it did from yesterday's mud.
I work two runs without success but where the fellow said he rolled one I thought I missed a fish on a shrimp but was not certain but the take looked good. I fish for another 30 minutes or so before heading to my next spot. It's a short drive of about 5 minutes. When I reach the river once again I see two anglers I know, on my side and two other chaps on the other side. I hear them talking about FWR, not sure what they were saying other than " I read it on FWR".
I work the run for maybe 20 minute and the two anglers I know are working towards me. All of a sudden I see a small child around 4 years old on the other side of the river. He has a large black dog with him. I donot pay much attention as I think he is with someone. Suddenly I see he is not, he is by himself, except for the dog and he is walking right on the river's edge and is walking up onto a high bank covered with a log jam. My two friends react quicker than me and start yelling to the youngster, "Get away from there, away from the river edge". I now join in as well. The rather large dog is running around and I am certain he is going to knock the boy into the swift flowing current. I feel helpless, my heart is pounding.
Finally the boy seems to heed our warning and heads back away from a certain disaster ahead but is still walking along the river's edge and is splashing in a few inches of a shallow spot of the river he is at now. He is not walking very steadily. One of my friends wades out from our side as far as he could to urge him to keep going, The boys shouts back something that is hard to hear as we are near some rushing water. By this time I am up with my two friends. I think maybe I should run upstream and cross the bridge and get to him but one of my friends says it will take you 15 minutes to do so but if we phone 911 I could get there quicker than a first responder.
Now things turn for the worse again as the boy reverses his steps and is going back to the danger spot, following his dog. We yell at him once again don't go there but he keeps going. The three of say what can we do if he falls in or is knocked in by his dog. The two anglers on the other side I first mentioned are too far down river to help. Do we shed out clothes and go in after him if he goes in, the current is fast on his side and would be swept away quickly.
Just as we think the inevitable is going to happen our yelling has paid off, a number of people appear, thankfully on the boys side of the river wondering what all the yelling is all about. We say your boy is just downstream from where you are standing. They cannot see him but we point towards where he is and they rush down and grab him. The black dog is barking, concerned someone is holding the child. The people yell back at us "He is not ours." We advised them to phone the RCMP as the now rescued boy of course has wandered off from somewhere. All three of us are weak kneed to say the least but so relieved that it turned out like it did, especially when it looked like a tragedy was seconds away.
The people head away with the boy and we three continue to talk of what happened, I cannot fish any more and fold up my rod. A few minutes later 2 teenagers arrive and we can see they are looking for the boy, we tell them people have him and they rush away. I guess this happened all in a space of 5 minutes I donot know for sure as we were in a state of shock the whole time.
I head for home and just before I leave the river I see the people come back and talk to my friends. In talking to my friend by phone tonight they told him it looked like the boy had wandered off from whomever he was walking with along a trail.
As I reach home I look at three of my grandchildren of around the same age who are over for a visit and give them a extra hug and think, they certainly do not yet know the danger of life. I am sure at the age this child was he had had no idea what tragedy that nearly happen to him and was more interested in playing and following his dog as well as enjoying being near the river like we do.
Of course we as siblings, grandparents and parents must be the guardians of our young people at such a young age and do not let them out of our sight especially when in such a dangerous location as this innocence human being found himself this Saturday afternoon. Tonight this still haunts me, reliving the scene over and over again of what I saw but the good thing was, a number of us where there today, on both sides of the Vedder River at the right time. For that I am forever thankful.
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Topic: A Near Tragedy on The Vedder Today (Read 5228 times)