Sacramento Fever
Written by Ryan Gentry
Tragic Story
Returning to shore after a decent dive, we packed our gear up the steep hillside in multiple trips. On the last trip up to the truck, legs feeling like they had slightly more rigidity than the neoprene that wrapped them, we passed two gentlemen who were eagerly heading down to the water we just left. “How’d you do?“ one of the men asked. “Got our limit.” we offered, as we carefully navigated around them on the single track trail. As they passed us (and I will always remember as it is burned into my memory) the two of us turned and shouted “Hey, the surf is getting pretty heavy out there, be safe!” If they did respond, it wasn’t audible.
At the top of the hill, we loaded our kayaks and finally dried off and warmed up, and were about to get in the truck to head home. In between the banter and post dive discussions, we heard a faint noise over the roll of the waves on the beach below. “You guys hear something?” my brother asked. “Sounds like somebody is yelling.” We rushed to the furthest point on the cliff. Sure enough, the waves had turned from the 2-3’ swell we had seen in the early morning and were now pounding in at much faster and larger sets. “HELP! HELP!” the cries came in, the shouting party not visible from where we stood. As we turned around, we spotted a woman pacing frantically back and forth, cell phone in hand. “Do any of you have service?!”. She asked desperately. We all took out our phones to see if maybe we had a straggling bar. “No, sorry, there is no cell service here.” Her pace quickened. “That's my boyfriend yelling, someone needs to help them! Can you guys swim out and help?” My eyes quickly dodged to the kayaks sitting in the truck, back to the pounding surf and then finally out to where the cries of help seemed to have come from.
Scenario after scenario played through my head of the time it would take to put on my wetsuit, pack my gear down the hill and paddle out. I imagined how I would load someone lifeless onto my kayak while being beaten by the surf and if I could even get back in with a dead weighted human, haphazardly loaded and unsecured, through the waves that we had already decided to escape an hour prior. What if he wasn’t unconscious? More scenarios of a drowning man, fighting and panicking, dragging me down to the ocean floor with him, as an untrained rescuer, that seemed to be the most likely outcome. I will never forget turning to the lady, looking her in the eyes and shaking my head to signal, “no” (please read the note from the author at the bottom). She looked heart broken, turning her eyes back to her cell phone. Not wanting to leave the distressed lady unattended, we hung around a while longer, still trying to locate the gentlemen's location from the cliff while another onlooker drove to the nearest house and phoned the firestation. They pulled up in full force, with the proper gear and knowledge to dare the rescue. Even they were not happy about the conditions. Now that there was enough professional manpower present, we left them to their jobs.
The next day, I sat at my computer reading the news that the man who swam out had not returned alive. He had made the 3 hour + drive to the cove that day from Redwood City and in his excitement, ignored the conditions and ignored warnings. He was the 6th man to die while diving that year.
A Phenomenon
There is a phenomenon among the adventurous. One that will either play on the ignorance of a newer participant or somehow separate the most experienced from their judgement. I grew up knowing it as “Sacramento Fever”, and it is a deadly bug to catch. This phenomenon usually manifests itself when a trip exceeds 3 hours of traveling, and when a trip has been in the works for a while, it is hard to accept defeat from something like poor conditions. The longer you have been planning it, the more likely you are to say “I have waited for this trip for weeks, I am not staying on the beach!” This is not uncommon and I have fallen victim to it myself, defying nature’s warnings to get a few snowboard runs in, even though I can’t see and the blizzard winds are blowing the lift chairs sideways. I drove hours to get here, got up early and spent good money on my trip and my lift ticket and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit in the lodge and watch it snow! Luckily for me, my friend who was a lift mechanic was the voice of reason and I am at least smart enough to heed the warning of the guy who works on the lifts when he tells me it's not safe to ride them. Who knows, if anyone but a lifty would have warned me, I may have taken them for a pansy and headed back out anyway. We do dumb things in the name of fun.
The most important thing about these situations, is to realize when and where they exist. To know that when you are planning a trip, there is a tendency to succumb to the desires to say “it’ll be alright” or “it’s not that bad, we can still dive.” Long drives, quick trips and last trips all make this urge stronger and can turn your last trip of the season into the last trip of your life. One of the things I tell all of my dive buddies is “I have no problem drinking a beer on the beach” which is my way of saying that anytime spent in nature is good for me and no fish or slug or scallop is enough to drag me into something I am not comfortable with.
Preparation
The other less commented portion of Sacramento Fever, is the tendency people have to be under prepared. Most people who are three or four hours away usually do not get to spend that much time doing that certain activity. This leads people to do things they aren’t quite in shape for, don’t have the experience with, or use gear that isn’t dependable, etc. This can turn an ordinary scenario that a regular diver goes through often into a terrifying situation, made entirely worse by fatigue or ill fitting equipment.
All of this is a long winded way of advising you to put the highest priority on safety, especially when dealing with mother nature. She is a cold, uncaring and ruthless force that we have the grace of shelter from during our normal lives. Once you remove yourself from that shelter, you are always in some kind of danger, which is partly why many adventurers go out in the first place. It also adds to the thrill of exploring new areas and pushing limits. However, if you do not check yourself and thoroughly understand the dangers that you’re up against, followed by preparation for them, they will multiply tenfold (resource: learn to read the conditions). Your life is worth more than any fish, scallop, last dive, or whatever excuse you use to push your limits. If nature, your dive buddy or even your gut throws up a caution flag, you would be wise to heed it, because the man who ignored us that day made a tragic decision - he was dead before any rescue team could reach. His dive buddy lost a friend, his partner on shore lost a loved one and he lost the opportunity to experience more of the life he could have lived - all because he was overly eager and under-prepared. We urge you to be prepared, trained and well equipped.
Our very first recommendation to any diver of any experience level is to take a freedive certification course with a reputable trainer. You will learn to make good habits, correct bad ones, and have an instructor able to individually assess and recommend improvements to your technique. It has a price tag, but an extremely small one in comparison to teaching you of potentially life-saving dive practices for you and your dive buddy.
Personal Note
This story is not one that I love to tell, because it involves me making a decision to not mount a rescue as soon as I heard cries for help. I still remember looking at my brother and my cousin, watching them go through the same mental processes that I was. I still remember the lady on the cliff, how she looked at me like I was her only hope, because in many ways, I was. I remember telling her I wasn’t going and how devastated she was, before reverting back to panic. I sympathize with her whole heartedly. I want to make clear that the decision to not go was not a case of “To hell with that guy, he should have listened” but it was thoroughly weighed and measured. I was not trained in any sort of rescue, CPR or medical aid at that time. I hadn’t even taken a freedive course yet, where I then learned the techniques to keep someone unconscious afloat and try to get them to respond. I was physically tired, we had spent all morning on the water and had fought to get back in in the exact surf I knew I’d be headed back into. I knew that the chances of me pulling someone in through that were not good. It was not easy to make that call and you can tell that it is one that I am still haunted by, but I have talked to many first-responders and they confirmed, without most of those details that I had made the right choice. Putting yourself in danger for someone who decided to put themselves in a precarious position is another terrible way to die. It happens more often then it should and it is another amazing reason not to push your limits past what you can handle. If you get someone killed, who in no other circumstances would be in that situation, you are now not only robbing the world of you, but of someone so selfless that they would ignore the signs you ignored and on top of that, pull your helpless hide from a life or death situation. After that freedive course I did take a CPR class. I did get certified and I will continue my training to be an active help to those who need it.
Resources
Get Divers Insurance (it’s cheap and has great coverage)
Coast Guard: Eleventh District Command Center Number: (510) 437-3701 - For maritime emergency use only.