Saved from the Rapids by God's Grace

By Bill Irwin, Sebec, Maine

As appeared in

I didn't have to ask my wife, Debra, if the river was high that April afternoon; I could hear it. The two dogs barked joyfully as we unloaded our canoe from the pickup. Pee Wee, our 15-year-old sheltie, jumped around my legs like a puppy, and even Bronnie, the big German shepherd, momentarily forgot his dignity as my Seeing Eye dog and tugged eagerly at the lead.

We had never had the canoe out this early, when the Sebec was swollen with snowmelt. But on that mild spring day last year, our friends Roland and Mary Richardson had suggested an eight-mile run from our town to Milo, the next town downstream.

They pulled their canoe from the back of our truck and followed us across the road to the put-in, where the foundation of an old mill jutted into the stream. Before Bronnie had led me halfway across the old mill floor my tennis shoes were splashing through icy water. I had never known the river so full!

"At least this should make the Rips smoother going," I said. The Rips are a 300-yard stretch of boulder-strewn rapids halfway between Sebec and Milo, the only tricky bit of navigation along our route. With the river in spate, I figured all but the biggest rocks would be safely underwater.

I held the canoe steady as Debra climbed into the forward seat. I'm the stronger paddler, so I always take the steering position in back. How can a blind man steer a canoe? people ask. And what brings me out on a swift-moving, rock-strewn river anyway? The first answer is easy; Debra directs me: "Left!" or "Hard right!" Why I do it is a harder question. Maybe it's because I know what it's like to have two good eyes and still end up on the rocks.

When I was a sighted person I was an alcoholic, a dropout as a husband and father, a guy who lived only for himself. The first clear-eyed thing I had ever done was as a blind man, when I asked God to take charge of my life. I had never spent much time in his vast outdoors, but after I quit drinking I couldn't get enough of it. I learned wilderness skills and became the first blind person to "thru-hike" the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. I made a point of telling fellow hikers about the God who guides me.

It was his world that beckoned as I took my place in the rear of the canoe, Bronnie between my knees, Pee Wee yipping excitedly up front. Then the two canoes were off along the deserted waterway. A few summer cabins, I knew, dotted the north bank, but there would be no one on this stretch of the river.

We chatted for the first few miles, before the thunder of the approaching Rips drowned out the Richardsons' voices. The current picked up till our two canoes were careening along at breakneck speed. The roar of the rapids was so loud I could barely hear Debra, just a few feet away.

Abruptly, I felt us go into a spin, whirling round and round in a dizzying eddy. The motion must have startled Pee Wee—I heard him jumping about. Between my knees Bronnie jumped too. As his 90 pounds shifted, the canoe tipped sideways, then capsized. The next instant I was tumbling and thrashing in the middle of the freezing river.

I broke through the surface, shouted Debra's name, went under again. Something kept pushing me down. It was the canoe, forcing me underwater as the current propelled it downstream. Struggling free, I thrust my head up. "Debra!"

I snatched at the canoe, but the current tore it away. I hurtled through the water, slamming into boulders, rolling and spinning. As I bumped against a rock, I managed to grab hold. At that instant I heard over the roar of the water the sweetest sound in the world. Debra calling me.

"Baby!" I yelled. "I'm over here!"