A friend peered over the waterfall and spotted Hanna Farrar wading in the water, her kayak floating nearby.
He yelled out to her, then tapped his helmet – the universal symbol for “Are you OK?”
The Carbondale kayaker shook her head.
Moments later, when the group’s guide, Scott, glanced up river, Farrar pointed toward her feet. Then, she made a breaking motion with both hands.
“It’s actually funny because it didn’t hurt,” the Dartmouth College junior and U.S. Freestyle Kayak Team member said Monday. “But when I looked down, I said ‘Oh no, this isn’t good.'”
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It was noon on March 19. Farrar and six others were nearly a week into a Spring Break trip chasing whitewater in North Carolina. Farrar had seen footage of the Class IV and V rapids on the Green River’s famed Narrows and was eager to run them.
As the group idled in the water surveying a seemingly innocuous 12-foot drop, she finally had her chance.
Two people pushed off – maybe three – before Farrar peeled out of the eddy and approached the waterfall. As she paddled, Farrar drifted to the right, veering from the planned line.
It didn’t take long to realize something was awry. As she approached the lip, Farrar’s boat began to tip forward – “like going over the handlebars, if you can imagine,” the 21-year-old Colorado Rocky Mountain School graduate said.
She figured she would just pencil into the pool below. She had no idea a large rock was lurking on the right side.
“Usually when you land on a rock off a waterfall, your boat dents in and takes some of the force,” Farrar said. “I’m not sure what I think may have happened. Because I was tipping over forward onto my head almost, I didn’t hit the rock with the bottom [of my boat]. I hit it more toward the top. … There’s a seam along the top of the bow, and I’m guessing it was the strongest part of the boat.”
Farrar’s kayak didn’t give. She remembers striking the rock and feeling both ankles instantly buckle under the force as she landed upside down.
Farrar pulled her skirt and swam out of the kayak. She pushed her boat into a calm current and dragged herself onto some nearby rocks.
Reality sunk in as Farrar surveyed both feet. The left appeared to be intact, but the right ankle was dislocated and her foot was pointing outward.
Those nearby, including a few boaters not in the group, rushed to Farrar and helped pull her up a steep, rock-strewn embankment and out of the water.
As the group idled in the remote gorge, they contemplated their next move. Boating the river’s final stretch was out of the question. Farrar, figuring her left ankle was only sprained, tried to limp up the embankment.
“I felt the bone give out right away,” she said.
