Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

Don't go chasing waterfalls
Please stick to the rivers and lakes that
You're used to
I know that you're gonna have it your way
Or nothing at all
But I think you're moving too fast

Just when you think it's safe to go back in the water, crap like this happens.

New York City has just installed a series of fugart ("f-ugly art") displays in our waterways, a set of faux waterfalls that are supposed to enhance the look of the rivers around the island. Personally I think they look cheesy with all that scaffolding, and for $15million bucks you'd think they could have added some stone stucco so it looked better - but hey, what do I know?

Anyways. As with all things remotely dangerous, there will be some fool who will think he knows better than others, and will do something stupendously idiotic and endanger himself and possibly others.

Case in point: novice kayakers, who were determined to get an up-close and personal view of the falls.

As the story goes, an experienced kayaker and his two assistants were taking out a group of 24 newbs into the river, as part of a fund-raising event for their paddlehouse. They'd swing around the harbor, take a look at the waterfalls from a nice safe distance, then head back for home.

Thing were going swimmingly, until a pair of dipshits decided to venture out on their own.

Two of the kayakers, in one boat, capsized after straying too close to a waterfall erected by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson under the Brooklyn Bridge, the police said. The two, Bert Rosenblatt, 36, and Vladimir Spector, 37, were rescued by a police boat and taken to a hospital, and released shortly after with no injuries, the police said.

Their guide, Mr. Baard said the men had been “goofing around,” and got too close to the fall as they tried to take pictures.

Before the group had taken off, everyone had been given instructions repeatedly about what to do should their kayak flip over or drift into trouble.

Rule 1, clutch your paddles, they were told. The men let them go.
Rule 2, hold onto your kayak. Instead they let it drift away, and clung to the buoys and containment barriers that were meant to cordon off the waterfall.

If the men had followed their instructions, Mr. Baard said, they would have drifted to a calmer part of the river, where they easily could have gotten back into their kayak.

“I don’t know if they were afraid or what,” he said. “One issue was that they didn’t know us very well, so they didn’t have an immediate trust of our judgment, which would have helped. But they didn’t listen to what we asked them to do, and so at that point I tried to let the police take over.”

Now here's the visual I really love:

When the officers arrived at the scene, they found Mr. Baard pleading with one of the men, who were both wearing life vests, to let go of the barrier, but to no avail. Eventually, the police ordered him to let go, and the man complied.

You have to admit, that had to have been funny. Everyone yelling at this guy to let go, and him whimpering "nononononononononono...."

"I wanted to get a closer look at the waterfalls, and then it sucked us in," said Vladimer Spector, 37, one of the two men plucked from the East River by the NYPD Harbor Patrol.

Despite the scare, police said there was no risk of actually being pulled into the falls' suction system. Cops tested the system with dummies that were not sucked in.

As opposed, apparently, to the two dummies who nearly did.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/12/nyregion/12capsize.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss