Adrenaline

Who Needs a Brain When You Have Adrenaline?

Let’s say you are about to speak in front of 250 people. You have prepared for this speech with great effort. You have every word memorized and you know exactly what you want to convey. They announce your name, you step to the podium, and your mind goes blank.

Your amygdala has just sent a flight message to your adrenal glands and half the blood supply in your brain is flowing to the major muscle groups in your body, which leaves you functioning on half a brain.

Our family had the pleasure of hosting my nephew from Utah for the past two weeks. He’s never been to the Great Northwest before and we wanted him to taste all the majesty and beauty of God’s country. Our first stop was a three-day trip to Crystal Mountain and skiing in the rain. My lovely wife, Cheri, thought a short kayak adventure around Fox Island would be the next fun adventure. The sun was shining and the temperature outside was 39 degrees, which made the 50-degree water rather balmy.

After instructing Cris on the basics, the two of them launched at the Fox Island Bridge and paddled westward toward the spit. Cheri noticed his balance was shaky and his paddle stroke was unnatural so she worked with him calling out instructions and monitoring his progress.

About 600 yards into the paddle, Cris did something no other person we have ever met and taught to kayak has been able to accomplish. In perfectly calm water and with a slack tide, Cris managed to tip over and land in the drink.

Cheri heard the commotion from her aft side as Cris calmly expressed his concern with an “oh, oh” preceding the splash. She ‘quickly’ turned her kayak around, which is akin to a mini aircraft carrier, and paddled to our land-lubbering nephew. He was afloat and calm with his feet still inside the berth while he attempted to swim ashore dragging the upside down kayak.

He was dressed in full cotton, 100 percent head to toe. Things quickly became heavy and cold. Cheri tied his kayak to hers, instructed Cris to hang onto his kayak, and started paddling. Between her paddling and his kicking they arrived at a floating dock in about 25 – 30 minutes.

She hurried out of her kayak onto the dock and tried to pull her 180-pound nephew out of the water. That’s 180 pounds dry. He was already in hyperthermia and his muscles were not responding. Cheri could see he was stuck in the water. She was calling for help but no one heard her calls, or so she thought.

In that moment, her amygdala thought she was about to give a speech and sent a huge dose of epinephrine to her upper body and with a mighty pull, she extricated her freezing nephew from the depths of the deep and onto the floating wood dock about 30 feet from shore.

Help arrived in the form of Bobbie who heard Cheri’s pleas for help with a coat off of her back, blankets, and a call to 911. Cris’s temperature was a cool 91 degrees when the paramedics got him in the ambulance.

I arrived to see my nephew in his birthday suit and wrapped in a nighty with a blue-tinted smile shivering with his aunt and paramedics surrounding him. A big thank to our First Responders and the wonderful folks on Bella Bella Drive who lent a helping hand during and after our adrenaline-filled experience.