We do have a culture here and it's both good and bad.
It's Alaskan.
Alaskan is so rugged and there are some places that are so remote, you really need to think
if something bad happens how am I going to get help?
Alaskan's boat more than any other stayed out there.
It's not necessarily a problem, it's just a challenge because it's what we do.
I think we use boats so often in our daily routine.
The excuse is oh I've floated this river a hundred times, oh I've been on this lake
a hundred times it's not going to happen to me and you know what it could happen.
It was a 2010-2011 school year I was going to Kenai Central High School.
Things were good.
Things were good.
It was just a regular school year dealing with friends and homework, it was just pretty
normal.
My relationship with my mom was a bit rocky and with my dad I was really close to him
and me and my sister were just like siblings, we fought still but we got along reasonably
well.
We would go out once or twice a summer, usually like Memorial Day weekend and we'd do a big
family trip.
And we'd go boating and swimming and we'd shoot guns and all the regular camping stuff.
Really fun, we'd go up there every single year since I was like two so there's lots
of good memories up there.
Everything that I look at, everything I read, there's just a preponderance of evidence that
shows that if people were wearing light jackets they could survive.
It's the fact that they provide an airway, that they help you with breathing that matters.
If you don't have your airway clear that's when people drown.
A lot of people in Alaska, a lot of communities in Alaska are familiar with somebody that
drowned.
They don't come out and say it but it's almost acceptable because of this rough state that
we live in and everybody believes that if you fall in the cold water, if you're wearing
a light jacket or not, you're not going to make it and that's just not true.
The whole challenge is to change perception.
We do a lot of boating for fun and recreation but some people, they depend on it for their
whole lifestyle.
So is there a boating culture in Alaska, absolutely.
It's our goal is to make sure that everybody has a safe, enjoyable time on the waterway.
I went up to Testimina Lake which is about a 26 mile long lake.
It was my dad, my sister, sister's friend Athena, me and my friend Katarina.
Before we even put the boat into the water, everybody had their life jackets on.
While the time we got into the water and everything loaded, it was about eight, thirty
or nine and about half an hour to get up to the river mouth and then to the lake and
we went and shot straight for Caribou Island.
About two thirds across the lake, it started picking up and the swells came up really fast.
I would say within like ten to fifteen minutes, it went from little ruts and then it was just
gigantic, humongous swells.
We had so much water in the boat and eventually my dad just said if the engine quits we're
screwed.
The engine went silent and we all looked at each other and we just didn't really know
what to do and we were right in the middle of a six mile crossing across the lake.
Then I just hear my dad yelling, jump.
Your feet go numb, your hands go numb, your muscles start to like contract because they
try to bring the heat back to your core.
I could feel my heart going really slow and my heart started cramping up, probably one
of the scariest parts.
Regardless of how good you swim and how long you've been boating, this cold water has a
physical effect on everyone.
There are three distinct things that happen to you physically.
When you fall into cold water, your physical response is cold shock and so you gasp and
you hyperventilate and you need to get your breathing under control.
The second phase is cold incapacitation where you lose sensation and function of your body
so you start to go numb and your muscles stop working as well.
The third stage is immersion hypothermia.
After about 30 minutes is when your core temperature starts to drop.
So what do you do about it?
Gordon Giesbrecht is a thermal physiologist and he has come up with this term one, ten,
one.
The one is within the first minute, get your breathing under control.
To focus your breathing and get yourself under control, count backwards from five.
Within ten minutes, do things for self-rescue.
Use communication and signaling devices like waterproof two-way radios, a handheld VHF radio,
a satellite phone, a personal locator beacon, mirrors, a whistle, a cell phone and one hour
of useful consciousness so do things to focus on reducing body heat loss.
That's when you really want to keep your movements to a minimum and just try to preserve that
body heat.
Doesn't matter how long you've been boating, doesn't matter how strong of a swimmer you
are, it's cold water, it can kill you.
An hour and a half or two into swimming, Katarina had quit screaming, she wasn't moving very
much, her skin color had turned to a really eerie gray color, she didn't breathe, she
didn't open her eyes, she was just already gone.
After that I didn't really know what to do, everything was going to be changed after that.
My dad had gone into a complete delusional stage, he was so delirious, he was acting
like a five-year-old.
He couldn't move and he was probably in that state for about 25 minutes.
And then he just all of a sudden straightened out.
So I think that's really hard, you have to prioritize and get where you need to go, you
just have to think about yourself and people around you and what you're going to do to
get yourself safe again.
I also wanted to see my mom again and I wanted to be able to go to college and I just wasn't
ready, it wasn't time.
I was the first person to touch my feet to the ground.
Their target was nurses cabin and so once they finally got to shore and they got themselves
warmed up, they knew where they were going.
They were rescued 18 hours after they went in the water.
I've been swimming since I was little, I've been in like tons of times but I probably wouldn't
be able to do it if I didn't have my life jacket on because I would be more focused
on trying to stay above water, I would have been more physically tired.
I do it anyways because it's what's safe.
I can tell you from other boating survivors and how they talked about how much they depended
on those life jackets, I would say their chances would have been a lot slimmer without it.
How many adults would have that mental fortitude to get to the beach after swimming for four
and a half hours, losing your dad and a friend.
When I heard her say that, I'm just thinking, they are extraordinary young ladies.
If everybody paid attention to what they did, I really do believe that we would reduce fatalities
by a huge amount.
If they hadn't worn a life jacket, they wouldn't be here but because they did, they're here
and it's as simple as that.
