When I was a kid (probably 2 or 3), my aunt was babysitting me. For whatever reason, she lost track of me and I found my way to our pool and fell in. I don’t know how serious it was but it was serious enough for my parents to fill in our pool the next week.
I never knew this even happened until my cousin and I found a piece of the pool when we were doing some digging when I was 10 or so. My parents explained the whole ordeal then.
Did your dive buddy (or someone else in your group) not have a safe second? Just curious. That sounds really scary.
Zipper JJ , That rock is called Dimple. It’s been the site of a few fatalities I believe. They have big a big sign on the left bank now.
Count yourself lucky. There is a video out there of yours truly being flushed out of a major hole (Phil’s on the Ottawa) and swimming a rapid stripped absolutely naked. The hole took my helmet, then my boat, then my paddle, then my PFD, paddling jacket, booties, and last but not leasy, my shorts.
Moral of the story? First, with a canoe it is OK to back ferry, but with a kayak it is better to pivot and front ferry. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that at the time, when I was first switching from canoes to kayaks. Second, don’t go out for dinner at the restaurant with the big video screens that show the events of the day. Third, when like Anodyomene you emerge up out of the water, naked as the day you were born, with the river not returning any of your clothes, walk proudly lad, walk proudly.
Oh my dear lord. :eek:
He had a second regulator, and his was delivering air just fine. He would have had to go to his 2nd regulator (short tube type) and give me his primary. But at 15ft, it was easier to signal him “something is wrong, out of air, going up!!!”, and just make the ascent, than it was to fiddle with getting the second regulator to me. If we were still at 35 or 45 feet, then I would have gone with a different plan than a fairly rapid surface.
It was a bit scary, but proof positive that my instructor did a good job with my training. When the emergency happened, I immediately knew what to do, how to communicate my issue (though my buddy didn’t exactly understand what was going on until we surfaced, it was that fast), and how to do a rapid, yet safe ascent.
I’m really glad I paid attention in my class! 
When I was about 8, I was standing on a dock at Holter Lake in Montana when my uncle’s very very large bear of a dog walked by and inadvertently knocked me into the water. Wearing jeans and sneakers and not having the precense of mind to take a deep breath, I sunk to the bottom without much air. It was frightening for a little kid.
As a teenager my friends and I went swimming one night in Lake Chelan Washington. Full of bravado and what-not the guys went racing out to a buoy. I made it to the buoy fine but then on the swim back I fell behind and I had to stop and I started to pass out. Black spots, the world spinning. I had to fight to stay conscious. If I had passed out my friends wouldn’t have noticed until it was too late.
Yeah I’ve been down the Yough quite a few times, and luckily have never involuntarily swam the rapids! But several of my family members have. It’s an easy enough river that we took my mom and aunts, and one aunt fell in and she will definitely never go rafting again! My brother fell in and his ass got banged up pretty good from being dragged over sharp rocks.
The closest I came was last fall, during a training dive for my advanced SCUBA certification. We were 80 feet down in the cold quarry, in drysuits, and I was sucking down air like there’s no tomorrow (on an extra large tank, no less). When we reached our ascent point, my tank had less than 500 psi remaining, and the object is to ascend at 750 to 1000 psi, reaching 500 at the safety stop at 15 feet. That was the day I learned the usefulness of the pony bottle as a backup air supply.
My next piece of dive gear will most likely be a mini backup air supply, such as Spare Air.
I was young, I think 4 or 5, and we were at my grandparents’ motel on the beach in Destin, FL. I was allowed out into the gulf with strict instructions to stay right by the shoreline.
It wasn’t my first time out, but I can’t remember who was supposed to be supervising me…my youngest aunt, I think? I do remember I was practicing swimming as best I could in the two feet of water allowed to me, swimming back and forth in front of the shoreline, when I got sucked out by an undertow. I just kept trying to keep my head above water, thinking how mad my mom was going to be at me for going out too far.
Then she miraculously appeared next to me (she had seen me being sucked out from the motel, I think) and hauled my butt out of the gulf. As soon as my feet hit land, I was on autopilot headed straight back to the motel to my peepaw’s kitchen where I finally sat down in shock.
My mom thought my reaction was the funniest thing after she calmed down…a looooong time later.
I still don’t like being in big bodies of moving water. Give me a swimming pool anytime!
I have a friend who drowned in these exact circumstances (healthy 20 yo, strong swimmer, near others, close to shore) in a Nag’s Head undertow. He was a great guy. 
You were really lucky.