I have decided to relate two of the more memorable encounters or dangerous moments encountered when in rubber outside. As pointed out, I dressed in rubber on a regular basis and took walks in parks, walked on school tracks and often waded in nearby wetlands. One house we lived at was less than a quarter mile from the park I’ve described in another post and a coastal wetlands of a large river estuary. The delta had many meandering waterways, some shallow, some deep. The creek that passed through the park emptied into the river system just 200 yards from our house. The street in front of the house crossed the creek on a bridge.
The River Delta
One night, I decided to skip my usual park walk and do a dedicated wade in the river delta. Dressed in my standard four suits, wader suit and military rainsuit, I set out to the bridge. My plan was to simply drop off the street at the bridge and climb down the embankment to the water. I had a seven-foot-long pole to use as balance and depth testing.
My first try proved the embankment near the bridge was too steep to descend, especially in multiple rubber layers. I crossed and walked from the road following the top of the retaining rocks of the embankment. I decided I found a place with less slope and started working my way down. The ground was covered with low blackberry bushes and about two thirds down I lost my balance and fell headlong into the water.
My head popped to the surface but I found no bottom. The water was deep. Air whooshed out of the neck open in the suits but enough remained to maintain some buoyancy. No panic. I saw the pole floating nearby and grabbed it. I then swam, as best I could, toward the nearby bank below the embankment.
The next surprise, the ground was not solid but a boggy maze of plants and grass floating on the water. I could not stand without my feet punching through the growth into the water below. I saw trees about 100 yards (maybe more) away. When laying prone on the ground in the dark makes distance judgement very difficult. I knew the trees meant solid ground so I set out dragging myself to the trees.
Sometime later and three rest breaks behind me, I dragged myself onto the high slope with the trees. I was exhausted and had no thought save getting back home and cleaned up from this adventure. The high ground proved to be some sort of dirt access road from the street near our house out to some unknown location near the main river course. When I got home, I checked the time and estimated I had been out on the delta at least two hours. I never ventured into the delta again.
I was on a disaster assignment in Oregon. I drove there so I had everything with me. By this time, I only had the one shoulder entry catsuit, the wader suit and two Hydroglove drysuits and the ever-present green military rainsuit. Clouds and possible rain seemed to aid my excuse to have a rainsuit on so I felt pretty confident as I pulled on the Hydrogloves, the shoulder zip catsuit, wader suit and rainsuit before heading outside. I walked across he parking lot to the front of the parked cars. Low bushes lined the lot I used them to shield me as I decided where to walk.
Next to the hotel was an open field. There were a couple of depressions in the field with small trees or bushes. I thought there may be standing water in the depressions so I decided to explore.
As I prepared to walk across the hotel driveway to the field, I saw two men coming up the side of the hotel. Instead of just walking into the field, I panicked and jogged into it. The two guys followed and I dropped into one of the depressions. I tried to hide behind a tree. The bottom was dry too so I had no water to hide in either.
It was obvious the two men were intent on finding the person they saw and find out why he was there so I climbed out of the depression as they were approaching.
“What you doing?” one asked.
“I’m out for a walk. I’m staying at the hotel.”
“You have a key?”
“Yes.” I handed the key card over.
“Okay buddy. Been a lot of bad types checking out cars in the parking lot lately. You be careful.” He handed the key card back. I could feel eyes looking over my rain gear but no one said anything more.
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