I made the mistake of going canoeing with three friends who fancied themselves "expert" in that field. This would have been around 1994-ish. The river we went to was the Mulberry which is over in north central Arkansas, about 2 or 2.5 hours east of where I live. Anyway, at this point I had went canoeing approximately five times in my life, all of those times on a very peaceful river, the Elk river, up in Missouri. Had a great time on all of them. This time, and I still don't know how the classification of canoeing on rivers go, but it was in spring, we had a lot of rain, and the Mulberry was running at a class 4? Not sure if that means anything to veteran canoe-ist but one look at where we were putting into the river told me I had no business trying to canoe that particular river. It looked like a river you would see in in Colorado or Oregon, something like that. All I could see were white caps and debris floating by at a high rate of speed. The other three guys were hooping and hollering around like this was the best thing since sliced bread. The guys had given me some fast water canoeing pointers on the drive over but you know how sometimes you just get a bad feeling? Standing on the bank of that river and listening to my friends hoop and holler, I just shook my head and told myself to suck it up. You don't exactly "back out" of this type of thing when you're a guy..lol. Anyway, we had picked a canoe route that was supposed to take four hours, something like 12 miles. Did I mention that none of us wore life preservers??? Hell, we were all big strapping fellas, in our early 20's and all of us could swim like fish. We had life vests with us, but they were thrown in the canoe with our supplies, mostly beer and sandwiches. About an hour in to the trip, I had only dumped the canoe once, which I was happy about considering the conditions. I was in the front of the canoe while my buddy was in the rear steering and telling me what to do. We had a pretty good rhythm going on and all in all, were having a pretty good time. As we approached a very steep, narrow right bend in the river, my friend gave me instructions on how best to handle this turn, but my luck ran out. It seemed like our speed increased dramatically as the width of the river narrowed down into the turn and I realized we were not going to be able to turn hard enough to make the sweeping turn. At the last second before we slammed into the bank, I attempted to slam my oar into the bank, I don't really know why, just panic or I guess I thought maybe I could push us on around the turn. It didn't work. The speed we were travelling at combined with me slamming the oar as hard as I could into the bank caused the handle part of the oar to come right back at me. The handle of the oar hit me directly under the bridge of my nose. i heard, more that felt, my nose break. The pain came later..lol It happened so fast, I don't remember falling out of the canoe, but I sure as hell remember the canoe behind us hitting my left leg squarely as it rocketed past us. I also became very aware that my vision was blurred with water and blood. I think, at this point, I may have been in shock. I couldn't seem to think straight, the rushing water seemed as loud as an orchestra playing in my head. I then came to the realization that my legs were stuck in some type of vegetation underneath the water. The rushing water and debris had created a kind of a berm right in the apex of the turn and that is where I ended up. It reminded me of what being in a washing machine must feel like. At this point, rationality seemed to reassert itself and I distinctly remember thinking "At least I'm in the water so no one knows I just pissed all over myself." I untangled my feet from the debris and pulled myself up on top of the debris pile and onto the bank. I didn't remember to breathe until that moment. I can't remember ever being so cold even though it was very warm out that day. My nose was a mess and my left leg had a helluva gash in it from being hit by the front of the trailing canoe. I looked down river and my friends had literally thrown the canoes onto the bank, no easy feat in that kind of water, and were running back up thru the woods toward me. I remember my friend Tony was completely beside himself and the first thing he said to me? "Hey man, I grabbed your oar out of the water. It's in the canoe."..... I just stared at him, not comprehending anything he said. Tony then seemed to realize what he had said, looked at me and said "Man, your nose is all jacked up. I mean, you're ok, right?" I just kept shivering, then I started to laugh which is how I've always seemed to handle traumatic events, which is just weird, I know. Anyway, we walked to nearest camp site on the river, about a mile away, and used a payphone to call the canoe rental company to come pick us up. Their first response was that we weren't getting any money back just because we didn't complete the whole trip......didn't much care about that, but they did come pick us up. Their is an actual picture out there somewhere, my friend Matt had brought along one of those water proof disposable cameras and he snapped a picture of me at the camp site while we were waiting on the canoe trucks to show up. I was wearing a blue tee shirt, which was now completely red in the front. My nose is swollen very badly in the pic and obviously broken. For some reason, it never occurred to any of us, including me, to stop by a closer hospital, we drove all the way back to Fayetteville and then stopped by our local hospital. I relayed the events to the attending physician who, like all "been there, heard that" medical personnel, told me with a complete deadpan tone of voice, that perhaps I should find a new hobby.......that funny ba$&ard...
