If you’ve ever saved a drowning soul on a river, you understand how it can literally change lives for the better. Rescuer and the rescued are forever grateful to one another for the experience. A miracle like that unfolded in Alaska this week, on a famous whitewater run called Six Mile Creek in the Chugach Mountains of the Kenai Peninsula. Obadiah Jenkins–dude just sounds like a savior–made this incredible catch of a man who got pinned in a fairly serious rapid on Six Mile. The main question is why was the guy running a rapid like that in a recreational kayak wearing a bike helmet and what look like hip waiters? Jenkins last second save, where he risked getting pinned in the rapid himself, was rather heroic. And it was captured on film for us to see.
According to reports, Jenkins wasn’t even going to kayak that day during the Six Mile Creek Whitewater and Bluegrass Festival. But his friends cajoled him into paddling (you can see the race bib he’s wearing). Six Mile creek is a classic piece of whitewater that’s guided comercially. There are some stiff section on it though, for experts only.
That’s why it’s kind of a mystery why 64-year-old Daniel Hartung was on the river. But nobody was going to die on Jenkins birthday. “People said afterwards that Daniel was too inexperienced, didn’t have the right equipment and had no business kayaking this river,” Jenkins said. “As I was calculating the risks of what I was about to do, none of that mattered. It was my birthday and I just wanted that guy to have another birthday.”
Hartung was unconcious, and had proabbly drowned, but was revived thanks to the group’s CPR efforts below the rapid on the bank of the river. Barring anything else tragic, and thanks to Jenkins, both he and Hartung will celebrate another year around the sun.
