I stood on a rock ledge overlooking a section of the Ottawa River, right on the border between the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. I was wearing my work gear: white helmet, blue life jacket and shorts, Teva sandals. The thunderous crashing of the water filled the air. The clouds shifted and blocked the afternoon sun.
I stared down into the roiling water at a rapid I knew well. Maybe too well.
Coliseum—one of the trickiest rapids on the river. There was a series of three standing waves, each six to 15 feet high, their size and intensity changing depending on water level. Nobody knew I was out here except for the head of river safety at the Ontario resort where I worked as a whitewater raft guide.
It was one of the biggest resorts in my native Canada. I was 21 and had been working there for the past three years to pay my way through college. I was pursuing a degree in outdoor tourism and business. Being an outdoor guide was how I wanted to make a living. I’d already gotten search and rescue, wilderness first aid and swift-water rescue technician certifications.
I liked knowing that I could handle myself in any situation that life threw at me. I grew up quickly due to the fact my parents divorced when I was 11. Even before that, my mom had pretty much raised my younger brother and me as a single parent. My dad was a long-haul truck driver. He came and went—mostly went. On the rare occasions he was around, he didn’t have much to say to us kids. After he and Mom split up, we didn’t hear from him at all. Mom worked three jobs to support us, and I became the man of the house overnight, helping look after myself and my brother.
The only father figure I had was my Heavenly Father, the God my granny had taught me to pray to, the God in the Bible she’d given me. I pushed away male teachers, youth pastors and the men my mom dated. I didn’t need them or anyone else. I was tough. Strong. Afraid of nothing.
At least I had been until recently.
Rain began falling as I stood on that ledge. The sky darkened. The vibe was ominous. I tried not to let it freak me out. Okay, I’m back here again….
That day on the river three weeks earlier had started out like any other. Twelve people, six on each side, in a 12-foot Maravia raft. Each of them was wearing a helmet and a life jacket. The guests—a couple of whom were pretty jacked them-selves—paddled hard. They’d all done our training session, going over what to do if they fell overboard: float on their back, head and feet up, to the bottom of the rapid, where the water was calm, and we’d pick them up.
My spot as their guide was on the back lip of the raft with a single paddle setup. I told guests which way to paddle so we’d have the best chance of hitting any wave straight on. The Ottawa is a pool-drop river: Deeper, calmer pools separate shallower, fast-moving rapids, so you usually have time to prepare for the drops. We rode a few rapids, no problem. The guests were having a blast, cheering when the raft got tossed hard enough to catch air.
We dropped into the top of the Coliseum rapid. Boom! We hit the first wave. Whoa! It was really big that day, 15 feet or so. Just as we were about to crest it, my guests cheered, which meant they stopped paddling and we lost speed. The two jacked guys up front fell off the raft. One flew by me and hit the water. No worries, I thought. We’ll pick him up at the bottom.
Then the second guy, trying to stay on board, grabbed the back of my life jacket. I’d trained for this kind of scenario. I felt for one of the raft’s safety straps and slipped my foot under it. I figured I would shake him off and we’d pick him up at the bottom of the rapid too.
But I couldn’t get free of his grasp. He didn’t mean to, but as he clutched my life jacket, he yanked me off-balance over the back of the raft, pulling my head underwater. He’s not letting go and I’m being waterboarded, I thought. I’ve got to bail off the raft and swim free.
I slipped my foot out of the safety strap and hit the water upside down. I went left, right, every which way. All of a sudden, my ears popped. I must have gone down further than I’d anticipated…to a place I’d heard of but never thought I’d experience.
There are two currents in this part of the river: the surface current and what veteran guides call the green room, roughly 12 feet under. Everything looks green because of the way the sunlight hits the water. It’s almost impossible to see clearly. The strong undercurrent makes it a dangerous place for even the most experienced swimmers.
Don’t panic, I told myself. Save your energy and your breath, and ride the current out. Maybe I’d have enough oxygen left in my bloodstream to make it to the surface then.
The problem was, my mind knew I was underwater, but my body demanded to take a breath. Logic fought instinct. Instinct won.
I gasped for breath. It felt as if liquid concrete rushed into my nose and mouth and immediately hardened. My body convulsed. The whole time I’d been under, I could hear the sound of the water and the sound of my heartbeat. Now my heartbeat was slow, slower, gone.
I’m done, I thought. I’m in your hands, Lord.
The sound of the water disappeared, and everything went black. I disconnected from all physical sensation. Was this my soul leaving my body? I felt immense fear yet, at the same time, inexplicable peace. I’d never known such fear was possible. Or such peace…
Then came blurry images. People hitting my chest. I heaved water. Darkness. The roof of a vehicle of some kind. I blacked out again.
I woke up in the hospital, in a hyperbaric chamber that’s used for divers who come to the surface too quickly.
I learned that another rafting group had found me floating, unconscious, two miles downriver. They dragged me into their raft and got me to shore, where river safety shuttled me out. No one knew exactly how long I’d been underwater. They estimated I’d been without oxygen between 11 to 22 minutes. Permanent brain damage occurs after only four minutes without oxygen; four to six minutes after that, you’re dead.
I shouldn’t have survived. And even if I had, I should have been too severely brain-damaged to walk or talk again.
Yet in less than a day, I was home. I walked out of the hospital. No brain damage. My eardrums hadn’t even ruptured. My nasal cavities had been crushed, and I would eventually have surgery to reopen them. My vocal cords were slightly damaged, though not to the point that anyone else would really notice.
I was fine physically. Emotionally and spiritually, though, I was questioning myself. What am I doing? Is this the proper trajectory of my life? Is this what I was made for? The thing that confused me most was that I was suddenly afraid of the water. Deathly afraid.
Conveniently, I was supposed to avoid swimming for a while. The managers at the resort assigned me to the kitchen. I kept thinking about this new fear of mine. Scripture says we haven’t been given a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind. How do I get that back? I wondered. Did I ever have it?
Over the next days, it came to me what I needed to do. I talked to Rieger, the head of river safety at the resort. He’d trained all the raft guides. No one knew the Ottawa River like he did. He was real old-school, no messing around. Even though I didn’t have much use for male authority figures in the past, I respected Rieger. Maybe that’s why I was able to admit my fear to him.
“I need to go back to that rapid and swim it,” I said. “Would you come out there with the Zodiac?”
He named an afternoon when he was free. “We’ll go then,” he said.
This was the afternoon. I met Rieger at the end of the dirt road that led to the Coliseum rapid. I parked my car and got in his truck. He had the safety Zodiac raft on the trailer. He drove all the way down the dirt road to the riverbank. We unloaded the Zodiac and put it in at the bottom of the rapid. It had a high-powered motor, and Rieger could go upriver, against the current, to retrieve me if I got in trouble. “When you get up there,” he said, “give me a signal.”
I walked up the rocky bank to the ledge overlooking the top of Coliseum.
Now I stood there, the smell of rain all around me, and tried to psych myself up to get in the water. You can do this. You did it in training. Rieger was waiting downriver. I raised my arm to signal him. He held up his paddle to signal back.
It was an eight-foot drop to the water. Normally I would have jumped off the ledge. But I couldn’t bring myself to jump. I was too scared. All I could do was step off the edge.
I hit the water messy, came up to the surface. You’re in it now. The only way out is through.
In whitewater, you don’t want to swim at the speed of the current. You want to go either faster or slower. I did an aggressive front crawl, legs kicking, arms slicing through the water, swimming as hard as I could to the middle of the river.
Then I hit the first of the three standing waves. I went upside down.
Just like the day I almost drowned. Not again, God! Not the green room.
But there was no pressure in my ears this time. I popped up to the surface. I’d made it!
No time to celebrate. I swam hard, punching through the second wave, then the third.
I got to the bottom of the rapid, spent. Rieger picked me up in the Zodiac and steered us to shore. We put the Zodiac back on the trailer and drove out on the dirt road. Neither of us said a word. He dropped me off at my car. I thanked him with a nod. He shook my hand and drove away.
That’s when I broke down crying. I felt such relief and gratitude that I was no longer bound by my fear. Lord, now I have given you everything.
Just as I heard the sound of the water the day I nearly drowned, I heard a response. No, you haven’t.
Hadn’t I demonstrated my faith by doing the thing I feared most?
A picture entered my mind of a massive piece of wood, the size of a redwood. Then I envisioned God breaking it in half as though it were nothing more than a toothpick.
At last, I understood. All these years I’d been trying so hard to be strong—training to get into top shape, pushing away anyone who wanted to help—that I never let myself fully rely on the Lord, the only one who was powerful enough to watch over my life. My deepest fear wasn’t the water. It was vulnerability. I’d confused it with weakness.
I promised myself—and God—that from then on, I would be open to wherever he was leading me, to whomever he put in my path. I think he was getting me used to the idea by showing me what happened when I stopped putting up walls and opened up to Rieger.
Even more amazing surprises were in store. No more than three weeks later, near the end of summer, I heard an ad on the radio at work. Something about a talent search and 20th Century Fox. I like their movies, I thought. I took a leap of faith and followed the manna and went to the event, where I met a casting director. That’s how I embarked on my acting career, and I’ve been blessed to do what I love for almost 25 years now.
Learning to be vulnerable has allowed me to connect with the emotions of characters very different from myself. It allowed me to fall in love with my wife, Loreili, who is beautiful inside and out, and build a family with her.
Life is so much bigger and better, so much more wonderful, when you’re rooted not in fear but in faith.
For more inspiring stories, subscribe to Guideposts magazine.
