Tragedy at our anchorage.
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sat 26 Feb 2011 06:37
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Koh Hong, Thailand Saturday 26th February 1219
Local, 0519 UTC
08:13.08N 098:30.14E
Good Morning
Last evening we crept into our anchorage at Koh
Hong around 1730. There was a tour boat anchored just in the entrance and we
could see that most of the tourists were back aboard having been on a short
excursion on the water on canoes to explore the spectacular hong. There
were still one or two canoes on the water at the stern of the
boat.
We proceeded past and anchored up a hundred metres
or so past them. We quickly launched our RIB so that Caroline and Glen could go
and explore the hong now that all the tourists would have left.
When they returned in the fading light I was on the
phone doing a radio interview and therefor was not able to speak with them.
However when I came off the phone they reported that the staff from the tour
boat had called them over asking if we had scuba gear as one of their crew had
swum and dived off a canoe and had not surfaced.
I immediately returned with Glen with snorkels
torches and back brace in place and a stern warning from Trish not to go in the
water. It was now completely dark. The tourists were all hushed and respectfully
sat patiently on the upper deck of the tour boat. We along with the various crew
of the boat in canoes and their RIB searched and searched around.
The young Thai crew was twenty two. He had
dived under the surface while swimming back to the boat. He never
surfaced.
The water was only a few metres deep but in this
area of Ao Phang Nga the water is laden with silt and you can not see even half
a metre in front of you. Our torches could not penetrate the water and we were
all sure that the young man would actually be on the bottom and not floating
though we continued a surface search of the area while some of the crew trawled
a grapnel to see if the body could be retrieved.
We offered any help they needed and satellite
phones etc but they had already been able to contact the "rescue services" and
divers were brought out within an hour. The police were also called. Most of the
crew from the tour boat boarded the boat's own RIB and seemed to
be holding some sort of religious ceremony having lit candles and sprinkling
something over the water where the boy had last been seen. While trying to be
helpful in searching we nevertheless kept a respectful distance while this vigil
or ceremony was held.
In the end as the divers arrived and headed into
the water we retired as there was nothing more we could do to help and with
communication issues there was a danger of us being in the way in some way or
another.
All this brought back memories of when I was almost
lost to drowning myself over thirty years beforehand.
A friend had agreed to take me out golfing, to
show me the game one Saturday morning, but we woke up to snow, so golf was out.
We decided instead to go to the swimming pool. For some reason that day there
was a problem in the pool and the water was perhaps over chlorinated or
something, but was so cloudy you could not see your feet in the
shallow end of the pool. The deep end was so cloudy you could barely see in
front of you and the thick black lane lines were of course completely
obscured.
During the session I swum many lengths of the pool
underwater. I had previously been pushing my limits at this. I was able to
swim two lengths continuously under water. Normally I would go from
the shallow end to the deep end, turn and return to the shallow end. Swimming on
the very bottom of the pool this allowed me to use the incline from deep to
shallow end to assist me to finish the second length.
For some stupid reason, probably over confidence
(you see a pattern emerging?) the next time I dived in from the deep end
swum to the shallow end and turned to finish at the deep end. My last
normal real life memory was touching the end of the pool at the bottom of the
deep end and starting my ascent.
During this short ascent I passed out and sunk to
the bottom of the opaque and cloudy pool. Various explanations were later
suggested as to why I passed out but pressure on my ears causing a bit of wax to
tear off my eardrum upsetting my balance and causing me pass out I think was the
final diagnosis. However I remember that to complete me feat of swimming
two lengths underwater I was at the very limit of being able to control my
bodily functions and I suppose it is fair to say that there would have been very
little oxygen left in my system and determination to reach the end of the pool
may have suppressed the natural scream for more air from the body. Who
knows.
However what I am going to tell you next I have
rarely told to anyone and the sadness I felt last night for the young boy who
was lost and his family reminded me vividly of the experience. Many of you will
laugh and will disbelieve or find some explanation for what happened to me.
That's fine. I don't know the full explanation for the experience any more than
you do.
It was as if I split into two people. One part of
my being or conciousness was high up at the rafters of the pool roof looking
down with a perfectly clear view (through the water that you could not see
through) of exactly where and how I lay on the bottom of the pool across which
line and which lane. This was later confirmed as being exactly correct, as were
other details of the scene I viewed. The other part of my being was
contained in the body and the mind of the "me" lying on the bottom of the pool.
From above I was simply observing all of the events
including the subsequent rescue recusitation, where, who and how I was hauled
out, where the life saving apparatus was and how the paramedics took me out of
the pool.
Lying on the bottom of the pool I was undoubtedly
entering deaths door. Later it was estimated that I was a minimum of ten minutes
on the bottom but possibly several minutes longer. It was long enough for my
friend, Angus, who has now sadly passed away himself, to: after a period, notice
I was missing, swim around the pool above and below the water searching, climb
out of the pool to the changing rooms calling out for me, then trying every door
of the changing rooms and the toilets. He then came back into the pool told a
guard that I was missing and swum around the pool again, eventually finding me
exactly where I could see I lay. This was a long time. My face was blue and my
lips were swollen and purple.
I had spent an age descending down a hellish
tunnel. I know it sounds stupid but I can only describe it as a fiery tunnel
with horrific demons and fire snatching at me. It was clear to me that this
tunnel was going to go on and on deeper and deeper. The mental
agony, turmoil and fear I felt were very real. All the time part of me was
still observing dispassionately from on high.
Eventually the voice of the pool life
guard calling to me and reassuring me gradually broke through the walls of the
fiery tunnel and as I started to come back to life I was metaphorically
pulled from the clutches of the demons in the tunnel and was reunited with
the part of me which was observing from above.
I understand that some readers will see this
experience as affirmation of the existence of hell and that's fine and perfectly
logical. On the other hand you may view this experience, which may be a natural
phenomenon, as a reason to understand how the concept of hell (and
heaven, as of course I have subsequently read of similar but pleasant
experiences) could be concieved. Had one never had any religious teachings and
experienced what I did you could easily cocieve of hell. I know I had the
experience. On the other, other hand you may just say that the whole thing is a
load of nonsense and there is some natural explanation.
Whatever the explanation I was glad to be
alive and I took from the experience that I should not swim underwater so long
that my system ran out of oxygen, wax was torn off my eardrums or that I was so
deprived of oxygen that I could loose control of my bodily
functions.
This is all history and part of the tapestry
of my life's experiences. The actual loss suffered last night by family and
friends of the young Thai who was not so fortunate as to be rescued was
certainly real. Very sad and very
tragic.
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