If you know me at all, you know how much I love being outdoors. Some of my best memories are going to new places with my friends and family to hike, ride our bikes, swim, ski, and even just relax. Nothing feels more refreshing than taking a break from your normal routine, putting down your phone for a little bit, and appreciating the natural beauty and scenery around you.
As fun as it can be to spend time outside, it can also be dangerous if you do not take necessary precautions. It is no surprise that there are frequent stories on the news about people getting injured, sick, or even dying after a day of hiking in the mountains or swimming in the ocean. Make sure that you’re always prepared with materials that you need for your travel plans, that you’re aware of your surroundings, and that you think carefully before you make a decision to avoid endangering yourself or others. A somewhat funny, yet traumatic experience that I had just a few years ago taught me to never forget the importance of understanding the potential dangers that exist in your environment and how to avoid them as much as possible.
During the summer of 2016, I was in Colorado with a bunch of my relatives for a family reunion. We stayed in my aunt and uncle’s little log cabin, which had a gorgeous view of endless mountains, rolling hills, and trees so tall that they seemed to reach the sky. We were even lucky enough to have a river right next to the backyard, which my cousin Luke and I decided to go tubing in one day. Before we left, our uncle gave us two tubes from his shed and pointed out a specific spot on the riverbank that he wanted us to stop at in order to prevent us from going too far away from the cabin.
It got off to a great start. Once Luke and I got into our tubes, the small, but fast ripples of the cold water carried us downstream, and the rest of the world beyond the river, canopy of trees, and glaring sunlight seemed to disappear. But once we arrived at the location where my uncle instructed us to stop, we knew it was time to end. So we slid in our tubes to the side of the riverbank and realized that the turbulent waves and rocky ground made it much more difficult than we thought it would be to stand up and get out of our tubes. After a few minutes of struggling and helping each other, we finally managed to pick ourselves up, and that’s when I accidently let go of my tube.
The more attempts that Luke and I made to grab the tube that was quickly drifting out of reach from us, the more we both kept tripping over the slippery rocks. Without hesitation, Luke sat back into his tube and started going downstream to try and catch mine. I tried to stop him and warn him that it was dangerous to go any further down the river. I even tried to persuade him to let me get the tube myself, since I was the one who let go of it anyway, but he insisted and continued downward. I pleaded with him to be careful and not take too long while I could do nothing but stand there helplessly on the riverbank and wait.
A few minutes later, I saw some of my aunts, uncles, and cousins come out to join me and check up. When they expressed concern about what was taking us so long, I frantically explained to them what happened, about how Luke went to retrieve the tube that I accidently dropped. At this point, Luke was nowhere in sight and the panic was rapidly escalating. About half of my family ran further down the riverbank to help look for him, and the other half stayed with me to make sure that I safely made it back to the other side of the land.
It did not take long before my limbs started to tremble and my eyes to sting with tears. The amount of shame and guilt I felt about the fact that Luke was missing and about the extremely high levels of stress this was causing to everyone in my family was almost unfathomable. I felt like it was all my fault; if I had just been more careful and held onto my tube more tightly, Luke would not have been in this life-threatening predicament with my family acting as a search party to try and rescue him. Of course, I knew that going to catch the tube was his choice and it wasn’t the smartest decision, but the fact that my careless mistake is what caused my cousin to put himself in danger made me feel completely responsible.
My remaining relatives spent the next twenty minutes or so trying to calm me down and reassure me that Luke was going to be fine. I expected them to be fuming with anger towards me because of the problems that I had caused, but instead, they were compassionate and supportive throughout my sobs and profuse apologies. My uncle Bill lended me his waterproof sandals and my cousin Anna held my hand to help me walk across the muddy, bumpy floor of the river. Then finally, we heard footsteps approaching us and my mom’s voice echoed across the river and through the trees as she screamed, “We found him!”
It felt as if I had been experiencing my worst nightmare and these three words were my morning alarms snapping me back into reality. I looked up and saw the rest of my family who had left earlier to join the search, and there was Luke. He stood there among them, soaking wet with streaks of mud across his arms and legs and holding both tubes. And it amazed me to see him return to us in one piece with no injuries, not even so much as a tiny scrape or cut. I ran up to him and threw my arms around him, and I have never hugged anyone harder in my entire life.
The rest of the night pretty much revolved around the incident, but the general anxiety subsided to some extent. Even though we were still shaken up from the experience, the sense of relief that Luke had returned safely far outweighed anything else. We gathered around a campfire outside the cabin as Luke recounted his experience in the river by himself before my family came and found him. It was a strange mixture of laughter, crying, yelling, and most importantly, promises that we made to each other to be especially cautious from now on. My family reminded me once again to not be so hard on myself and that the situation wasn’t my fault, and they reminded Luke that a tube, or any inanimate object for that matter, is easily replaceable and to not fixate on getting it back if it will pose threats to his own safety.
The moral of this story, like I said in the beginning, is to be fully aware of your environment and of the measures that you need to take in order to stay safe and healthy outdoors. Even though everything worked out in the end, the scary part is that it could just as easily have taken a turn for the worst. I think that Luke and I, given that it was our first time tubing in Colorado, underestimated how tumultuous, forceful, and difficult to navigate the river can actually be. We probably would have never predicted beforehand that such a disaster could have unfolded. But the point is, never ignore the fact that your fun vacation with your family can become an experience where your life is turned upside down in a split second, especially if you do not take precautions. If you are skiing, make sure to always wear a helmet and not go too fast down the hill, if you are hiking, remember to bring essentials such as bug spray and water, and if you are at the beach, do not swim too deep into the ocean. The outside world is an amazing place, but you will be able to enjoy it so much more if you are careful about your actions!