As We Leave #7: That Time We Almost Died

And you are college students with a fetish for adventure running in your veins in place of blood. You won’t settle for the half package; what is doable, you’ll do it. What just might be doable, you’ll try that too. It’s something about that age. And that’s why five of us kept climbing up the hill, level after level, until eventually reaching the highest accessible point, a calm pool of chilly water formed by a wide fall of about two feet in height. We were having fun.

For the most part, the pool was shallow. The water level would settle a little below your waist, deep enough to swim but shallow enough to get out of the water if you feel too cold. But if you get close to the fall, the ground takes a sharp change in slope, and it soon gets as deep as a man and a half. In our group, I was the best swimmer, while Melvin and Divya could swim reasonably. Adheena and Rahber, on the other hand, were foreign to the art. So, while they stayed in the shallow area, the swimmers were making frequent trips to the deep part.

Right about where the fall was, there was a rock rising out of the water. Soon, we were climbing onto it and jumping or diving into the deep water. Anyone who swims knows that diving is the best part. And the sensation of penetrating freezing water, the feeling of the coldness enveloping you head to feet, was adding to the thrill. While Divya, Melvin and I took turns on the rock, something else was bubbling up in Rahber – FOMO.

He wanted to try. Getting on the rock wasn’t an issue, as it could be approached from the other side, where the water was shallow. The complicated part would come after the jump, getting back from the deep zone. We thought about it, and it seemed doable. He could make the jump, and I could drag him to the shallows once he did. We had two backup swimmers as well. What could possibly go wrong?

There were two things. We found out the hard way.

Rahber was soon standing on the edge of the rock, but he couldn’t get himself to jump just yet. Anyone who has been in that position knows the difficulty of finding the courage to jump into water you know is deeper than you. Melvin followed him to the rock to talk some motivation into him while I waited at the edge of the shallows, giving my own words of encouragement. A couple more minutes of stalemate, and then it happens. Rahber makes the jump. I immediately knew things had gone wrong.

The thing that could go wrong, number one, a  communication gap. Rahber was not a diver; he jumped his feet first. That wasn’t a surprise, though. I was expecting him to jump in my direction so that he would cover some distance, and I would carry him the rest of the way. But I hadn’t explicitly told him this; I was kind of taking it for granted. Instead, he jumped towards the fall side, quite near the rock itself, and was already struggling to keep his head above the water, flipping about frantically and gasping for air. I needed to hurry.

I swam quickly in his direction, but there was no way I could get hold of him without him calming down first. His arms were being flung in every direction as if to catch a ball of air that was evading him, and his legs were kicking strongly into the water, albeit futilely. I realized that what he needed first was not saving; it was breath. As I reached him, I dived underwater myself and planted my feet on the ground. Then I caught hold of his waist and lifted him up like Simba by the monkey in The Lion King.

A few seconds like that. Rahber savors his first pure gulp of air since jumping in. The restless arms and legs relax, and the panic starts to subside. But all is not well yet. As he is regaining his composure, under the water I am losing my breath. This can’t go on indefinitely; I must come back to the surface. The plan is simple: once Rahber has calmed down, he should take one deep breath and be ready to go underwater again. I will let him go and get some air myself and then bring him up and swim him to the shore. Except there’s one problem. It’s not like he has prior experience being saved from drowning, and there’s no way I can communicate this to him from under the water. But there’s no time to come up with a better plan; I am almost out of breath and need to resurface. I let go of his waist.

The thing that could go wrong, number two, the panic. Understandably, the drowning man is not a very rational being. All that matters to the drowning man is staying alive, and if I may use a DSA term you all are familiar with, he will use only a greedy algorithm to do it. You can’t ask a drowning man to take a step back so that he leaps forward, and you can’t blame him for that.

Imagine the feeling of the ground beneath your feet suddenly disappearing, you suddenly finding yourself in quicksand. That must be how Rahber felt when I let go of him, and the panic was back faster than the flash. He didn’t know I was just taking a breath, and from his point of view, he was back in the nightmare of drowning. And in that situation, he does the only thing he can do – use me as leverage.

In the panic of the moment, he pushes down on me to stay above water. And I don’t have the breath left to be able to afford that. The roles have reversed now, and I am the one drowning. Underwater, I am fighting his hard grip to make him let go, but he’s holding on for dear life, kicking the water desperately. This could have been the end.

Thankfully, the friends waiting in the shallows realized that I had been underwater too long. Without losing a beat, Melvin jumped in from the rock and took hold of Rahber, making him relax his grip just enough for me to break free and resurface and launch myself to the edge of the shallows where Adheena and Divya were standing. There, neck deep in water but feet finally on solid ground, I hit my lowest point mentally.

The pungent reality of the possibility that one of us – the saver or the savee – might not make it out of this hit me like a tsunami. I could see Melvin fighting the same battles I fought a couple of minutes ago, and I knew that, just like me, he couldn’t keep it up forever, either. While not proficient enough in swimming to carry Rahber on his own, being an athlete meant that Melvin had a better lung capacity than me. Still, it’s not a limitless resource. Something had to be done fast.

I was still recovering from the shock of being the drowning man myself; all those times my parents told me to be careful of the water flashed in my mind. They would say it every time I went on a trip, and I would casually assure them that I would. But at that moment, my head was above water, and the world was sinking. Air was all around me, and yet it felt suffocating. But inaction wasn’t an option for any of us.

No words were spoken. No plans were discussed. We just knew that none of us was going to fix this alone. I could try swimming to Rahber and taking Melvin’s place, but both me and Adheena knew it wouldn’t achieve much. We needed all of us to pull this off.

Me and Divya started moving towards Rahber. Behind me, Adheena placed her feet firmly on the edge of the shallows and held out her hand to me. I took it and in turn, extended my other hand to Rahber as far as I could. But I still wasn’t close enough. From behind Rahber, Melvin gave him one strong push, and Divya, who had approached swimming from the side, caught hold of the collar of his shirt and gave it a firm pull, bringing him just close enough to me for him to extend his arm and connect with me. The shirt tore a little with the force of the pull, but it had done the trick. Rahber, who was now more composed as the initial shock of drowning had receded, extended his arm to me, and as soon as I connected, Adheena took her cue and pulled strongly. Melvin and Divya did their part too, pushing us from the other side, and all five of us huddled towards the shallows.