Life’s Lessons, 180 degree change of course, opportunities disguised as hardships, all can be found in a suddenly broken body; day 1

July 17, 2005

Yesterday the Potomac Whitewater Festival’s competitions
got kicked off with the Great Falls Race. This is perhaps the oldest running
extreme race in the USA, and likely the world, with my first falls race
back in the 80’s. The race is one of many events at the festival,
but certainly the one that I look forward to the most. There is the “Squirt
‘till you hurt” competition for squirtboaters, a freestyle
event, and usually attainment races, downriver sprints, and an old school
surfing competition on O’Deck where the old guys that I used to
surf O’Deck with back as early as 1984 (when I moved to DC), surfed
their slalom boats, Jessie Whittamore squirt boats, Dancers, Mirages,
etc.. These guys are still using the same boats on this wave that requires
a speedster to surf. This year the organizers were young guys, Colin Kemp,
and Rob Terry, and they forgot the old school dudes by accident, but next
year they’ll have those competitions back. DC has its own kayak
culture and it has kept the oldest of kayak designs alive and well there.
My Super Hero, by virtue of its speed, ender and pirouette ability will
break the age barrier in DC for boats and fit the bill for these surfer
guys, and perhaps next year, during the old school surf competition, you’ll
see a bunch of them competing.

I didn’t get to see any of the above mentioned
events this year, however, because I spent the day in the hospital, which
is what this is about. The morning was like every other Potomac Festival
over the past 8 years, where the Jackson’s show up at 6:30 am to
Great Falls Park, VA with the RV so we can park it at the event site before
the lot fills up. There are only about 5 parking spaces that we can get
the RV into that the park rangers or park police don’t make us move.
This year I drove the RV and Kristine drove the Mini-Cooper and we got
a great spot. We unloaded the kayaks from the roof for people to try,
taking down Funs, a Hero, Super Hero, Rocker, Star, and All-Star (no Super
Star on the roof because Blair has it (head of instruction at Ottawa Kayak
School). The night before was my Jackson Kayak family paddle clinic, and
then a run down Difficult Run Creek with Steve Fisher, Keith Lyles, and
some new friends. We had to wait for an hour to put on for the family
clinic because of a huge thunderstorm that dumped 3” of rain in
one hour, which would explain why Difficult Run Creek shot up to 6.4 on
the gauge (medium/high) only 30 minutes after the rain stopped. That is
another story, but in a nut shell I taught my family clinic (with Emily)
and then paddled over to the confluence of Difficult Run and the Potomac
(a 5 minute paddle) and hiked up the creek for 1 mile, put in and ran
class 3, 4, and a sweet burly class 5 at the end of the creek, called
the Falls. I told this story because the rain took the Potomac from 3.4
on the gauge to 4.1 and the race course we expected to race on, the “Center
Lines” got too high and the back up plan was the Fish Ladder. When
we arrived at the park at 6:30 am, we found out that the river had dropped
back down to 3.7, which was low enough to race the Center Lines. I have
run the Center Lines about 500 times in my life and they are exactly the
same as they were back in the mid 80’s so I opted for no practice
runs that morning. Danny paddled the Rocker, and I took the Super Hero
to the river, paddled over below the falls, and hiked up the island below
the center lines. This is a typical Potomac thing to do, put in below
the rapids and then hike or paddle up them. It was a hot morning and everyone
was covered in sweat just from hiking up with their boats. We all waited
for Paul Shelp and Emily Jackson to paddle down to the starting line and
set up the start for the time trial, finally we are talking about the
event, cool.

The event is a head to head race, which started at
Great Falls in 1996. First everyone does a time trial from the top to
the bottom to pair down the field to the top 9 men. (only 2 women competed
this year). Internationally the rules for extreme racing and boatercross
are for boats 8’6” or less. This was decided upon back around
2000 when top kayakers were competing in Dancers, Excels, Toranados, etc.
and crashing and burning because these boats are clearly not a good choice
for steep creeks, even though they are fast in a straight line. In DC
however, slalom racers and wildwater racers are used to long boats and
they want to race them down the falls, so the Potomac Festival has typically
not only allowed, but encouraged long boats for the race. Well, this year
it was announced that you could compete in either the long or creek boat
class. At the competitors meeting it was announced that we would be competing
against each other!!! This means that the top 9 boats will be going to
the head to head race, long and short boats together. The big question
by everyone was, can the short boats compete against the long boats? Steve
Fisher and I both took it as a challenge to make sure that no long boats
beat us, and in Steve’s words, “bringing a long boat to this
race is like bringing a road bike to a mountain bike race.” I agree
to some extent. OK, so after the time trial, Jason Beakes in his Kendo
was leading the time trial, followed by me in my Super Hero, and Andy
Miser was in third in his Nomad. Jeff, a member of the USA wildwater racing
team, paddling his Toranado, made the top 9 also, but lost all benefit
of the long boat by getting eddied out struggling to turn it on every
practice run I saw, and then on the race run. The head to head heats were
next:

Jason beat out his competitors on his semi-finals run
to make the finals, including out sprinting the long boat from the start
paddled by 7th place finisher in the USA flatwater sprint team trials
Jeff in his Toranado. I went second and only had Danny Stock in my heat,
because Rob Terry bagged the head to head part of the race for some reason.
I had pole position because of my time trial so was able to get a jump
on Danny and lead to the finish. Danny gained time on me in two places
on the way down, however, and had a good run.

Andy beat out his two competitors in his heat, with
a tight start into Grace under pressure to win his place in the finals.

The finals heat was Jason, EJ, and Andy. To get to
the start, you have to attain up from the staging eddy at the lip of the
falls (one of the worlds coolest elevated eddies where you can look to
your left and you are 20 yards downstream of the lip of the entry into
the Virginia side, and just even with the lip of Grace under pressure!).
You literally have to attain through some medium speed water out in the
open in front of some really beefy, rarely run lines down the falls to
get up to the starting eddy. I got to the start after Jason but before
Andy. Andy took a while to position himself on my left, and Jason earned
the poll position on my right(on the eddyline). So far nobody had gone
from a non-poll position to first place off the start. The way these things
work is once you earn poll position on the start, you make sure you use
it to your advantage. This means that you place your kayak in the best
starting spot, one that makes your competitors start where you want them
so that you have the best current to start with and the best angle to
the first big drop or crux move. Jason lined up on the river right eddy
line with the only fast current only 12” from his kayak and the
straightest line to Grace Under Pressure (a key move and the most technical
of the three major drops). I was dead center in the middle of the eddy
next to Jason in a seemingly impossible position to get out in front,
Andy was on the river left side of the eddy (small mid river starting
eddy) and had some current on his side, but the worst angle for Grace.
We were all about 12” apart from each other when the starter, Paul
Shelp, gave us the “are you OK pat on the head signal” and
we all patted back. Then he raised his paddle straight up for the “ready”
command, and we waited for the drop of the paddle. I tried to anticipate
it and ended up pulling in front of them, so Paul signaled me to go back,
I started backpaddling to get back in line and he put the paddle back
up and dropped it the second my boat was in line. I turned my backstroke
into the strongest forward stroke I have and dug in hard with my head
down and bow angled just in front of Jason’s bow. I think I must
have gotten a split second on him on my first stroke, just enough to get
clear of his chest stroke that should have come but never did, and my
Super Hero just took off putting me ½ of a boat length in front,
with Andy behind Jason. Jason’s bow was on my stern, clearly trying
to figure out a way to make the pass, perhaps by pushing me into the rocks
on the right but I kept pressure on my right strokes and used just enough
sweep to steer right to the entrance of Grace without losing any speed.
I jumped ahead in Grace by ½ boat length and had almost a full
boat length by the second drop but was down to his bow on my stern for
the Fingers (20 footer at end). I wanted to go under the boils that push
you right by plugging in, avoiding the surge that washes you 10+ feet
to the right on the sprint to the finish on the left. What happened was
after I plugged in and was popping back out, Jason dropped right in on
me. From a first person perspective it was: “let the bow drop, plug
in, lay back to let the bow rise up with my paddle ready to pull and WHAM!
Before I could see anything the bow of Jason’s boat plugged right
into my gut on the right side, coming down at a 45 degree angle and not
stopping until it hit my pelvis making a solid thud. I came up screaming
“AHHHHHH” and attempted to take a right stroke to turn back
to the finish line and barely got ½ a stroke in before collapsing
on my deck. Kristin P. was signaling the “Are you OK?” sign
and I didn’t respond, not sure what was up. I turned and saw Jason
next to me, he said “sorry” looked at me and then saw Andy,
who was a ways back going for the finish line and took off to cut him
off for the win. I didn’t even watch, but tried to self-diagnose
as I floated through O-Deck bouncing off of holes and eddylines, trying
not to brace or stroke any more than I had to. I got into Fisherman’s
Eddy and people were still asking me if I was OK. I was in incredible
pain, still trying to figure out if my pelvis was broken. I knew that
I couldn’t lift my right leg without a sharp tearing, burning pain
that signaled torn hip flexor or something like that. I popped my skirt
and tipped over out of my boat and floated for a minute to gain my composure
before attempting to walk out which I couldn’t quite figure out
how I was going to do. Kristine was there on the shore with me along with
Jason and Danny, and the Cabin John Volunteer Fire Department Zodiac.
Jason and Danny helped me get my gear off and attempt to walk up the rocks
to my RV or car but we only made it about ¼ of the way before I
about lost consciousness from lack of blood to my brain. I managed to
sit down, which at this point any movement at all brought excruciating
pain and get my head between my legs. Kristine kept telling me to let
the Fire guys look at me, and give me a ride down river to an ambulance.
I tried one more time to go up, but it didn’t go very well and Kristine
insisted that I go to the boat. Going down was way easier since I didn’t
have to lift my right leg, which I have figured out that I can’t
do at this point without dropping me to the ground. I got to the water
and laid face down in it, doing dead man’s float until the boat
was ready. Danny accompanied me down the river in my first Zodiac ride
on the Potomac, very cool. I tried to make the best of it. We got to Angler’s
Inn, at the other end of Mather Gorge and a truck was waiting at the boat
ramp to run me up to a waiting ambulance. Getting out of the boat, into
the truck and into the ambulance were all challenging to do with only
Danny knowing how to help. Kristine beat me to the hospital and helped
to check me in while I got checked from head to toe. No matter how many
times I told them I have no head, back, or rip injuries, they insisted
on checking for them. What they did check for was broken bones, broken
intestines, or broken organs. I had none of them, since where I got hit
is void of organs, except for the appendix, which I have already had removed.
I have a bruised hip bone and pelvis, with torn stomach muscles that are
swollen up quite nicely. I will need more tests to determine how bad things
are torn, and the ER doesn’t do that. Certainly I can’t be
a good kayaker without a good hip flexor, so I will go for tests and make
sure I don’t need to get anything put back together.

I managed to make it to the party last night for a
short time, enough to see lots of old friends, watch the race video, and
give away a Jackson Kayak to a new member of AW (they sold 40 memberships
in one night!)

They gave me some serious pain killers called oxycodone.
After getting a shot at the hospital and then taking two of these things
I was able to start walking. I still can’t lift my head up, or sit
up, or lay on either side, or bend over, etc., but after two pain killers,
I am way more mobile and if I am careful I can isolate the movements that
I don’t cause serious pain and it is enough for walking slowly.
My side looks like a football got stuck in it, but there is no discoloration,
just a puffy side.

So, here I am, the day after an injury, and the one
thing I don’t know is how long until I can kayak again. My guess
is two months, but it is a guess. It all depends upon what is torn, whether
I’ll need surgery to put anything back in place or not.

The one thing I do know is that I am already turning
my attention to administrative goals with Jackson Kayak and also R+D.
It is like a light switch with me, for some reason, I am immediately wanting
to get going on projects that are hard to do during the competitive season
and road trips. I am in awesome physical shape right now and wouldn’t
trade my conditioning for any body else’s. However, with no core
muscles available, I won’t be running, kayaking, lifting, or anything,
so this marks the day I started getting out of shape in 2005. Rock Island
is awesome for conditioning and I intended to take mine to the next level
there, now it will be my resting place for an undetermined amount of time.
I guess I will have to see when the comeback is scheduled for sometime
later once an inventory of damage is assessed.

Today I went to Angler’s Inn to see Emily, who
is substituting for me today in clinics. She has 5 students this morning
and three helpers. That is a lot of cooks in the kitchen. This afternoon
she has 4 students and one helper. She will be able to shine through better
under that scenario and take a commanding lead role. The students all
got a call or email to let them know that I had been hurt and Emily would
go from being my assistant, to taking the lead role and she would get
an assistant. I am very proud of the fact that Emily has the skills to
take the lead role, as well as the personality to handle it maturely,
and the motivation to do it. She is teaching great classes at age 15!
I also received several emails from the students and I am very impressed
with their desire to take the class with Emily. Here is one note Emily
received this morning:

Hi Emily,

My name is Dave Witmer and I’m one of your students
for tomorrow on July 17th. It will be fun and an honor to meet ya. Your
Dad seems to be very confident of you and from what I have heard in all
your accomplishments….no problem at all ! I think it will be great that
you’re taking this step in kayaking…go for it!

Way to go on running Great Falls too! Very impressed
indeed!

Your student,
Dave Wiitmer

Today marks the first day in a new chapter in my life,
EJ the non-kayaker (temporarily). I will make the best of it, knowing
that I can’t ride horses, go swimming, play with the kids, or anything
physical. I will rest, try to get better, but do lots of work that requires
non-physical effort to better Jackson Kayak, and kayaking in general.

🙂 EJ