Dive team rescues kayakers, themselves

WASILLA — An effort to save an overturned kayaker in the Little Susitna River Sunday evening was harrowing for victim and a rescuer alike.

“It’s not the way we want them to go, but the training that our team members receive in swift water rescue — which includes swimming in rivers — that kept our team member from being hurt or worse,” said Mat-Su Borough Dive Rescue Team Captain Dave Reilly.

The call to respond to the river near the Edgerton Bridge in Hatcher Pass went out at 8:16 p.m., and an ambulance was on scene at 8:20 p.m., Mat-Su Borough Deputy Director of Emergency Services Clint Vardeman said.

“It was a bit of a challenge to make the rescue,” Vardeman said.

First challenge — rescuers had to rely on a rescue raft.

“Due to where they were in the river, we couldn’t use motorized boats,” Reilly said, adding that river there is narrow and shallow. “It’s definitely very rocky.”

The kayaker who’d overturned in the river was caught on a log.

“There were two things that saved this juvenile’s life, and one was the life jacket and the other was her boyfriend, who stayed on top of the log and held her head up above water until we go there, and he himself put himself in so much danger of hypothermia that he had to be transported (to the hospital),” Reilly said.

Second challenge — the water was running high and fast due to recent warm weather in the Valley. Reilly said the river flow probably contributed to the kayak overturning.

“They were also inexperienced boaters,” he said.

When the rescue raft got close, he said, it “got into a hole” and submerged, wedging itself underneath that log, which Reilly referred to as a “strainer.” Both team members in the raft were now caught on the strainer.

“One of the team members ended up underneath the strainer and underneath the victim and wound up getting flushed down river where Palmer Rescue was waiting with throw bags,” Reilly said.

A throw bag is just a bag of rope bundled up and easy to toss to someone in a river. Reilly said the throw bag worked as planned and the team member was pulled out of the river.

That left a second team member still on the strainer.

“What ended up happening was the rescue member that was wedged on the strainer on that log was able to climb on top of it, and then due to the victim being in the water for a pretty significant amount of time (she wasn’t) able to move so the rescuer with the help of another rescuer that had come down walked them across the log and through the bushes and back up to the bridge,” Reilly said.

Though it was dramatic, Reilly said that, on balance, the rescue turned out well.

“It had the potential to be a lot worse,” he said.

The two kayakers were hospitalized with hypothermia, but none of the dive rescue team members were hurt. And they didn’t even lose any boats — the kayak and the raft were plucked out of the river undamaged.

Reilly reiterated that safety equipment likely contributed to the incident’s positive outcome.

“They were actually wearing their life jackets and that probably saved their lives,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.