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...yesterday's drowning on the Upper Ocoee was one of my best friends. I wanted to post the real story, so that you all know what really happened, and I guess to help me deal with it a little as well.
Stan Guy, head guide at Sunburst adventures was trip leading a 12 boat full river trip. Stan and several other guides had clean runs over Alien Ledge, the left side of the river, an alternative to running Mickey's. We always run this side on raft trips. One of our second year guides, who had good experience on the Upper, pinned is raft on the right side of the ledge. The rafts behind him had been bumping him on the way over the ledge trying to free it. Sometimes it happens over there. I have pinned there myself. Basically there is a rock there that just stops the raft. Stan had another guide set a safety rope at the bottom in case the raft came loose and a customer fell out. He then walked up to the top of the ledge and was attempting to make a swim ferry to the stuck raft. We do swim ferries to stuck rafts every once in a while. It is not the safest thing to do, but, it is the Ocoee, at least that is the attitude that I hate to admit I shared with Stan. I don't have that attitude now.
I know what Stan was thinking, because just a week or two ago, we were talking about him seeing another guide get a raft unstuck there without dumping any customers. Usually when you get pinned there getting off includes a rather spectacular raft flip when you hit the pool at the bottom. On his swim ferry, Stan swam to the upstream side of the boat, normally we would swim to the downstream side, but in this case there was a six foot ledge on the downstream side. As he reached to grab the raft he missed the boat, and went underneath. The guide with the stuck raft had all his customers sitting in the floor of the boat, so that when they went over they would have the best chance of staying in the raft. The second he realized Stan had gone under his boat and not come out the other side he shoved the raft off the ledge. Even right when the raft went off, no one could see Stan. Rafts downstream recovered the customers from the stuck raft, a raft was sent to the whitewater center to get help, and the other guides secured their boats and immediately ran back upstream to help find Stan. They searched the pool below the ledge, dropped ropes in to the ledge, and searched the ledge with paddles. At no point could they ever see Stan. After almost an hour of searching, the guides made an decesion that I don't think was ever verbalized, that this was now a body recovery, not a rescue. I know this was a little late, but Stan was our brother, and we love him. I still don't know if I believe he is gone. The body was recovered many hours later, after the water was turned off, by a search and rescue team that had been doing training downstream.
As with any death on the river, I am sure some bad decesions were made. I am also sure I won't be able to stop a lot of people on hear from talking about them. I know there are lessons to be learned here, God knows I have learned some. Please just remember that there are people on here who loved this guy more than we could ever express in words.
I wasn't on this trip with Stan, I was on the water on a different trip. The story above is a collaboration of what the guides who were there told me.
I would like to end this with a few memories of Stan, I guess more for me than for anyone reading. I met Stan at Rock Island, while we were both in college at Tennessee Tech. We were both there just before dark one evening in December. We started chatting some in the eddy, and I found out he was going to school at Tech. I remember we were talking on the way back to the cars, and I said "I have an important question for ya, you like creekin'?" The roads that one conversation would take us down are memories that will last a lifetime. If it wasn't for Stan I never would have been at Sunburst, where both my wife and I have gained friends that are really just extended family now. He called one day and asked me if I was interested in "pushin the rubber bus".
I'm just going to remember my buddy, doin what he loved, living his life to the fullest. I just appreciate him taking me along for the ride. I love you Stan. |
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I lost a great friend yesterday on the Ocoee... New 
BoaterTalk 
