MORNING SENTINEL (Waterville, Maine) 13 July 06 Rafting trip takes unexpected turn when snake strikes (Colin Hickey)
Ken Walsh tends to look for adventure when he goes on vacation, but the executive director of the Waterville Area Boys and Girls Club got more than he bargained for last week in Oregon.
Even Walsh, an endurance athlete who has completed 100-mile trail runs, would have to agree with that.
Nobody, not the most daring adventurer, wants to hang from the edge of a canyon by one arm when the good -- and rocky -- earth is about 100 feet below.
But that's what happened to Walsh as a result of a rattlesnake that bit his nephew on the first day of a whitewater rafting trip down the Rogue River in southern Oregon.
"He reached down and saw a snake and this kid, who is very active with a lot of creatures, thought it was a harmless garter snake," Walsh said.
His nephew, 11, was wrong.
The snake, instead, was a baby rattler, poisonous venom and all.
Walsh said he and the rest of the rafting crew, which included his wife Suzanne, realized quickly that the snake bite could be fatal.
"We were watching (my nephew) really closely and noticed that his arm had started to swell up and that he was getting pain under his armpits," Walsh said.
Getting help, though, would not be easy.
A wilderness adventure means you have to be in the wilds. The only way out, Walsh said, was to navigate the narrow canyon trails to reach a vehicle access road -- a journey of about 5 miles.
Not an enviable task in broad daylight. Walsh, though, had to start his mountain trek just as the sun was going down. To light his path, he had to rely on a head lamp.
About halfway through his rescue run Walsh stumbled and slid off the trail, saving himself by grabbing hold of a tree stump with his right arm.
After he pulled himself back on the trail, Walsh had another 20 minutes to run before he reached the access road.
Good fortune smiled on him at this point. Walsh said he came across a man sleeping in the back seat of his Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. He didn't hesitate to bang on the window.
"He got out all shook up, wondering who this crazy maniac was," Walsh said.
The man, a first-grade teacher on vacation, quickly offered to help once told of the situation. Eventually the two enlisted the help of a woman who lived in a mountain cabin to get hold of an ambulance.
Then the challenge was to find an access road that could bring the ambulance closer to the camp.
The best they could do was one that put them within a mile of the rafting group.
So Walsh had another endurance test -- getting medical equipment to his nephew and then hiking back to the ambulance with his nephew in tow.
"We finally got him to a hospital about 4:30 in the morning," Walsh said, or about 9 hours after the snake bite occurred.
By Friday, Walsh said his nephew had recovered enough to be released from the hospital.
As for Walsh and the rest of the rafting crew, they had no option but to complete their river adventure, including hitting the rapids Tuesday after a sleepless night.
The experience, Walsh said, while exhausting, proved to be both exhilarating and gratifying.
If not for the help of the strangers, his nephew might not have survived, Walsh said.
He said the reaction of the first-grade teacher -- once he overcame his fear of the maniac banging on his pickup -- to the crisis summed up the experience.
"He said 'Listen. I'm with you through this whole thing,' " Walsh said.
Rafting trip takes unexpected turn when snake strikes