I searched through the water in fear, in confusion. My mom had just told my uncle, who was leading the canoe that my cousin Jamil had just fallen in the water. Usually it would be no big deal that someone fell in; it would actually be kind of funny. But this time it wasn't. Jamil fell in without a life jacket, and when my brother and cousin, who was in the canoe with him, tried to throw the sitting mats at him so he could get pulled in. But he was too busy panicking because he fell in 15 feet of water. When he panicked he soon got tired and went under. I could hear my brother screech in fear from a mile away. My uncle and my other cousin, Cidni, rowed so fast the boat rocked back and forth. When we got to the site where he fell, my uncle bolted into the water with his clothes on, pushing water back and looking for him with his eyes wide open. Then he screamed as if he had seen a ghost.
False alarm. It was a stick floating in the water. After I recovered from my heart dropping of fear, I saw my aunt, my uncle, my mom and my brother and cousin. When my brother Khalil arrived at the bank In a canoe with everyone else, he had tears dripping from his eyes and seemed panicked.
" he's gonna die, he's gonna die!" He repeated. The tears trickled down his chocolate skin and dripped into the warm sand.
" he'll be fine, someone's going to find him." I said as I rubbed his back to make him feel calm. We sat there in silence with cidni and my other cousin Donovan. We sat there for longtime as the adults in the family canoed all over the river asking if they had seen a teenager in the water. Then that's when my brother announced,
" cold water conversion! He'll live if the water's cold enough to wake him up." Khalil ran down to the shallow part of the water getting his shoes and pants soaked. Khalil dipped his finger in the water to feel the shining gray water. He trudged back up the bank with glassy eyes. I could already tell that the water wasn't where it needed to be.
And that's what was happening. My mom returned along with my uncles, aunts and my uncles girlfriend. They pulled up on the rest spot and immediately dialed 911. There was another lady on the spot with her older kids. She asked what happened and my mom said, " one of my little cousins fell out of his canoe and he didn't get out! Please call the police."
" oh that's horrible! I'm on it right now... Hello! A woman at the Oscoda boating river has lost one of her little cousins in the water! He hasn't come up and we don't know where he is!" She explained.
I could hear everything because she put her phone on speaker and still decided to yell into the phone.
" ok we're sending the underwater ambulance right now! But does this kid know how to swim?" They asked.
" HE COULD BE DYING AND YOU WANT TO KNOW IF HE CAN SWIM!?! IT DOESN'T MATTER IF HE CAN SWIM, IT MATTERS IF HE CAN BE SAVED IN A MATTER IF FIVE MINUTES!" She screamed then her slammed her finger on the end button.
I heard the adults talking to Police, doctors and the manager of the river. There was lots of yelling and panicking. Instead of yelling, why not be trying to SAVE HIM!! I thought angrily. About ten minutes later I heard the sound of a motor boat and sirens. they really came! There gonna save him! I thought. They pulled up in the rest spot talking to my mom and uncle about what had happend. Then my mom and my uncle Gary got in the boat and vanished into the fog.
Hours later something came out of the fog, it was the motor boat. My mom and
uncle jumped out of the boat and sat next to us. The police in the boat stood
up, but remained inside.
“Well, they found him two miles downstream than where he had fallen. His
foot was also stuck in a tree which was probably why he didn’t come up.”
When we got back to the cabins the kids were told to go outside while the adults talked. I thought about what happened at the river and if I could have done something. Minutes later the kids were invited into the main cottage and sat down.
" Now this is why we are suppose to be safe in the water." My mom explained. " Jamil died about 45 minutes ago due to failing CPR." Her voice trailed off. Eric, which is Jamil's dad sat in the corner of the couch until we all stood up and prayed. I prayed that he would make a safe way to heaven and that we he would see his grandmother up there with him. We packed up the cars and went home with no extra conversations, left the cabin site and drove home in silence.
The moral of my story would be not to panic in a bad situation. If you do, it gets you no where but trouble. But at the same time, the moral is that the people who die are not gone, there time on earth was just short. They will always be around, watching over you.
