Cold Indifference

My friend David Kessler is shooting a film about the Pine Barrens, and I’ve been serving as a guide. This footage was taken on the lower Batsto River about an hour before David got snagged in a fallen tree and capsized into the freezing water. We saved his equipment and emptied the kayak, but David was soaked to the skin and his paddle was lost. Hypothermia was a real danger, so we quickly stripped him to the waist and I gave him the spare fleece and jacket that I keep in my backpack, just in case this sort of thing happens–which it has. I fixed a rope to both kayaks and towed David downriver to my car before he became hypothermic, but his camera was shot. Happily, the footage was saved.