Tiverton kayaker pulled from frigid water

Test drive takes rescuer on most fortunate course in nick of time

By Bruce Burdett
Posted 4/27/19

TIVERTON — A Tiverton kayaker survived a prolonged plunge into Tiverton Basin last Wednesday thanks in considerable part to a boatyard worker’s decision to take a seal-watch detour while …

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Tiverton kayaker pulled from frigid water

Test drive takes rescuer on most fortunate course in nick of time

Posted

TIVERTON — A Tiverton kayaker survived a prolonged plunge into Tiverton Basin last Wednesday thanks in considerable part to a boatyard worker’s decision to take a seal-watch detour while test-driving a new boat.

Matt O’Donnell set out aboard a new 18-foot Robalo center console from Don’s Marine on Nanaquaket Pond at around 5 p.m. in decent but breezy weather.

He said he was going slowly to avoid pushing the brand new motor above 2,000 rpms on this break-in cruise.

“Normally I would have headed up the Sakonnet River from the pond to Tiverton Basin,” Mr. O’Donnell said. “But for some reason I got it in my head to go around the island (Gould Island) to see if there were any seals.”

There were none, so after rounding he continued north — he had the river to himself, not unusual for mid-April.

“Just after I got past the Stone Bridge pier I spotted a brightly colored upside down kayak.” He drove toward it and tried pulling it aboard, not an easy task as it was full of water.

“It’s been windy lately so I figured it had just blown off somebody’s dock or something.”

But hearing loud yells, he looked to shore and saw arms waving — “I waved back at them to let them know that, yeah, I’ll bring your kayak back in.”

“But then I could tell that these weren’t ‘I lost my kayak’ kind of yells. And I saw that the yelling was coming from firefighters” who were pointing up ahead of him. He would learn later that the firefighters had been summoned by a 911 call made by Dorene Cecilia Henrique (among others) who was up near Coastal Roasters. The Fire Department’s trailered rescue boat was en-route but still some minutes from being of help.

“That’s when I saw somebody clinging to one of the mooring balls out by the channel,” perhaps 75 yards to the north.

As is often the case there, the current was “ripping pretty good” but Mr. O’Donnell managed to maneuver the boat up alongside the mooring ball.

The man, Tiverton resident Darian Rivera, “was alert — he told me ‘I’ve got to get out of the water … He was pretty tired, had nothing left” and was turning blue. “He told me, “I’m trying to stay calm but I think there is something seriously wrong with me.”

Mr. O’Donnell said he tried to get the man to climb up the stern dive ladder “but he couldn’t feel his legs so that wasn’t going to work.”

“The only thing to do was pull him aboard. I gave him one good tug and — nothing, too heavy … I said to myself, uh oh, I’m in trouble.” But on the second try, “I don’t know where the strength came from but I just got him aboard.” He credited Mr. Rivera’s “remarkable calm” for making the rescue possible.

Leaving the flooded kayak behind (it would quickly ride the current up toward the Sakonnet River Bridge) he aimed the boat toward some firefighters at Stone Bridge but, with no dock float there yet, unloading the victim onto the tall abutment was going to be a problem.

Instead, several firefighters, among them Josh Ferreira whom he had known from school days, climbed aboard and they motored up to Standish Marine with its boat-level slips and a waiting ambulance. The victim was treated for hypothermia and rushed to St. Anne’s Hospital (by one estimate he had been in the 46 degree water for at least 25 minutes). He said it took rescuers and the hospital a considerable time to warm his core temperature back up to normal.

“I’ve got to give credit to the firefighters,” Mr. O’Donnell said. “Josh was the first aboard and he grabbed the bull by the horns, knew all the right questions and took control.” Another, Jimmy Miranda, hoisted Mr. Rivera “up and out of the boat with one arm - pretty amazing.”

“Just one of those crazy things’

It all happened in an instant — a wave that hit the wrong way “and I was in the water,” down near the tidal rip that regularly forms at the basin’s south end, Mr. Rivera said. “Just one of those crazy things.”

An experienced kayaker who lives near Tiverton Basin and kayaks there often, he lived previously in New York where he kayaked on the Hudson River, once paddling down the Hudson all the way to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Now employed by the Naval War College, he’s also a baseball player and musician.

When I went over, “at first I was kind of in denial.” It sank in on him that he was in real trouble when the kayak filled up and got dragged completely underwater by the current.

Wearing a life jacket, without which he said he has little doubt he would have perished, he set out swimming for a distant mooring ball (he estimates 75 yards).

Twice during that effort, he said he came close to drowning. Even with the life jacket he was pulled under — “I swallowed a lot of cold salt water” an experience that jolted him to try harder … “I knew I didn’t want to go like this, too painful.”

“The life jacket saved me from drowning and kept my body temperature up for just long enough to save me from ultimately succumbing to hypothermia … The water was really cold and I knew I could not stay in it for long,” he said.

“It was all a blur,” Mr. O’Donnell said of the rescue. “It wasn’t until I was driving the boat back that it sank in — wow, what just happened?”

“I know I did what anyone else would have done and I’m just glad that I was able to help. I don’t know how much longer he could have held on to that ball.” (Mr. Rivera later said he probably could have held on for no more than 10 or 15 minutes more.)

That Mr. O’Donnell was able to pull it off successfully came as no surprise to Don’s Marine owner Don Helger.

“Just like him,” Mr. Helger said. “Knowing Matt, he’d get the job done and he’d get it done right.”

Mr. Rivera later expressed his gratitude to all involved in a letter to the Sakonnet Times (see page 6).

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