What I Learned From Almost Drowning

Photo by Lisa Fotios: https://www.pexels.com/photo/purple-light-on-water-10508813/

First off, I didn’t do this so I could come up with a Medium topic for clicks. Yesterday on Father’s day I went out in a kayak with no life preserver. That was lesson number one, never go out into a body of water without a life jacket. Two, the water was calm and I had no idea I was going to make myself tip over by digging my paddle under to stop myself. This caused me to lean too far over to one side and as the kayak overcorrected I tipped over.

That’s when the fight for my life began. I was already tired even before I fell into the water. I had been swimming and before that I had used a handpump to pump up an inflatable paddle board. I’m 40 years old and 200 pounds, a significant portion of my weight is buoyant. This probably helped more than it hindered.

I had around half a mile to swim to get to shore. I held onto my kayak and began to swim to shore. I had no idea if I was swimming against any currents but I felt like my progress was slow. It was terrifyingly slow as time slowed down while I worked hard. I was breathing hard at points, nearly gasping for breath. My body was full of junk food, consumed at a family gathering before we went to the lake. My upper body felt on fire. Resting felt counterproductive because I still had to hang on to the boat and stay afloat.

With this manmade lake it gets deep fast so I wasn’t able to touch ground until I was almost to shore. During most of my swim a cord from the kayak was tangled around one of my legs. I also was wearing swim shoes, which are meant to protect your feet from rocks, not aid you in swimming. I wore them far too long before I chucked them onto the boat. I didn’t attempt to get on the boat because I was too afraid to waste the energy, knowing I was already tired and probably wouldn’t have been able to do it anyway.

As I made my way to shore it began to dawn on me I might not make it. I was beyond exhausted and I could see how far I still had to go. I felt like I was making no progress. You know when you’re running hard and your body wants you to stop because you feel like you’re killing yourself? I was getting to that point. I was probably making the effort more difficult than it should have been. The true problem I was facing was energy conservation. I only had so much and the tank was emptying too quick for comfort.

One of the scariest thoughts I had was how easy it would have been to give up, let go and let myself go under. I was extremely thirsty and considered drinking the lake water. At times I shouted for help. I could see people on the shoreline staring at me. I could see my parents staring at me. No one did anything. They all dumbly stared as I feebly paddled toward shore. In my mind I thought it would be obvious someone off a boat, with no life jacket, trying to get in to shore would be in trouble and need help. There were at least half a dozen adults on shore, some out in the water on floaties and not one person came to help.

By the time I made it to shore, utterly spent, no one said anything, no one asked if I was okay, no one acted as if anything happened. Maybe they had no clue and were blissfully only paying attention to their own lives. I was angry at my parents who sat like bumps on a log. They had time to go back to the house, get a life preserver and the extra kayak and paddle out to me.

Hard lessons I learned:

1. No one is coming to save you. If you find yourself in a life or death situation, it’s all on you. People will be there to collect your corpse, but it’s up to you to make sure your own body doesn’t turn into one in the first place.
2. No one is prepared for an emergency situation. Few people take the time to assess a situation. I think a lot of people are too out of shape to even think of helping. People would rather not have to help, they don’t want to be bothered. They don’t even ask if you’re okay.
3. Fitness is life insurance. I still workout. Not nearly enough, but I walk stairs, I do bodyweight workouts, I walk a lot. It was barely enough to get me to shore. If you want to be able to survive at the end of the day you can only count on your own body.
4. Recreate smarter, not harder. I should have had a life jacket, I should have stayed closer to shore. I never expected I’d tip over. The water was calm, the weather pleasant. I had never trained to get back on a tipped kayak or learned how to get it back to shore. I basically flipped it back over, went to the back and paddled it back as best as I could.
5. Death is swift. I realized how quick it would have been had I gone under. I had no time to reflect. I had nothing go through my mind except ‘get to shore’. I felt disappointed in how hard it was to push myself to keep going. I thought I’d have all this adrenaline energy and the body pulling out all the stops to keep going. Maybe it was, but I was so out of shape it didn’t seem like it and one is tempted to give in to death, especially when you’re utterly exhausted.
6. Fitness is life insurance. Don’t workout to look sexy. Don’t workout only weights to get big muscles and avoid cardio so you don’t lose your gains. Cardio is a huge collosal deal. When you are in a situation that is life or death, cardio and endurance are major factors. Strength in my situation would have been more about getting back on the boat. One definitely needs survival strength. Why is it insurance? Because no one is going to help you.
7. It’s all so very stupid. “This is stupid.” Was one of the thoughts I had, especially as I got close to shore. I was maybe 50 feet away and I felt near the end and I thought how stupid it would be to simply drown and be no more being so close to shore with all these people around, many of them looking at me. I realized much of my time I spent in life was stupid. Why did I care about getting better at chess a few days ago if I’m simply going to die?
8. I didn’t gain a new appreciation for life. Life isn’t sweet all of a sudden. It’s not like every moment with family is now precious to me. I was actually angry at my family for doing nothing and then downplaying the whole thing. I was angry at them for buying so much junk food to celebrate Father’s day with. I was angry at the people on shore for ignoring me even when I shouted for help. I was angry at how pointless so many of my life goals are. In fact, all of my life goals require living in order to be accomplished. And they all take place in the future, with the assumption of a full life. I don’t know how to live other than to try and stay alive and even with that I falter constantly by being tempted to eat and drink stuff that will make me more easily killable. There’s this phrase “fit people are harder to kill”. It’s true. A fit person would not have had trouble like I did. It would only have sufficed as a reminder to wear a life jacket and that’s it. A person more out of shape than me would have drowned and their life story would be over.

And one day it will be over. Which makes me wonder what’s the point of trying to improve in anything if you never get to see it happen. Not to mention no one but you would care. And do you even care?