Yesterday I went hiking through a gorge nearby with a couple of friends. I’ve been going there for about 13 years now. Usually the destination is this waterfall which is a great spot for swimming and hanging out. That picture is a year old. Yesterday, the water was so high that none of the rock face to the left was even visible. The area to the right has a ledge about 15-20 feet above the water that everyone jumps off of.
Anyway, it wasn’t too crowded, being a Tuesday afternoon and all, but there were a couple of groups of teenagers, us, and a family with a couple of kids who looked to be about 10 and 12.
After we had jumped off a few times and swam around a bit, we were hanging out on the flats above the falls. That’s were the two groups of teens were too. The family had set up shop down below. It’s kind of a pain in the ass to climb up if you’ve got a lot of gear.
So we’re hanging out, enjoying a few cold adult beverages, soaking up some afternoon rays, and generally having a good time. The two younger kids were up on the ledge, getting ready to jump off for the first time.
The girl (older of the two) jumps off, and right away her brother gets this look of panic on his face, looks right over to us, and starts franticly waving us over. All I can think is that this girl hit the cliff on the way down, and is a bloody, possibly unconscious, mess below. And the current was so strong her father would have never been able to reach her if she got caught behind the falls.
We and one of the other groups start running over to see what happened. Apparently the third group was too busy smoking a joint to assist. :rolleyes: I’m thinking, if she’s caught behind, I got one chance.
I’m running down, too quickly on wet rocks I might add, slip big time, land on my left forearm, roll onto my right shin, and proceed to roll over the falls and land in the middle of the pool. The girl emerges a few feet away, obviously shaken up, but not hurt and able to swim.
I still can’t figure out why the kid freaked out, but I was feeling pretty silly at that point, so I hightailed it back up to top and didn’t talk to him about it. He did at least say thanks on his way down (he decided against the jump) but I felt like Chevy Chase impersonating a Gerald Ford rescue attempt. :o
Last night I was sitting around, with a busted up forearm and shin thinking once again that no good deed goes unpunished. I know, I didn’t actually do anything, but I tried to help and got hurt myself.
This morning, after almost 3 months of unemployment, I got a job offer. It’s the only job I interviewed for that I really wanted.
Maybe coincidence, maybe I paid a little karmic debt yesterday, I don’t know. Anyway, I guess I just thought it was a pretty cool story that I felt like sharing.