In this story from today’s Bee, a horrible tragedy was averted when a family, including a pregnant mother, barely escaped drowning in the fast flowing American River on Mother’s Day.
Unfortunately, these events will occur more frequently, as the area around the river grows with more people unaware a raging, freezing river runs through the center of the major metropolitan area they live in.
Here is an excerpt.
Rafters survive close call on river
By Molly Dugan -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, May 15, 2006
An 18-year old pregnant woman, her husband and her two brothers almost died Sunday on the American River after their raft overturned in rapids.
Christina Mosher, 18, and her husband, Curtis Mosher, 28, paddled to an island in the middle of the frigid river near William Pond Recreation Area in Carmichael.
A Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District helicopter spotted the couple, and airlifted the two to safety. Today is the couple's one-month wedding anniversary.
Christina Mosher was taken to Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Sacramento with stomach pain, but she said she and the baby - Mosher is 14 weeks pregnant - are fine.
"It was my first - and last - time rafting, at least while I'm pregnant," she said.
Her brothers, Jonathan George, 22, and David George, 16, scrambled to the riverbank. They found a telephone and called their mother.
"I thought my son was teasing," recalled Kimberly George. "Then he said, 'Mom, if I were you, I would get down here.' It scared the life out of me.
"This was not the way I wanted to spend Mother's Day."
Kimberly George drove to the scene, at the southeast end of Arden Way, then called 911 at 6:46 p.m. Rescuers found the Moshers at 7:13 p.m.
Fire Battalion Chief Anthony Kastros said when the river's current is swift and the water chilled, "The likelihood of a rescue is rare. It's amazing that they made it."
