She held onto dear life as help arrived just before she was about to give up. A train conductor luckily saw her and called for help.
The canal current is strong and fast, making the 18-hour fight for her and her 55-pound dog's life nearly impossible while holding onto a tree.
*****
Back before they made it illegal because so many people drowned in them, I spent quite a bit of time swimming in those irrigation canals and unless there's an egress point nearby, they're surprising hard to climb out of even when you're fresh. The concrete sides are steep and covered in algae, plus there's usually a pretty stiff current. We used to take a length of knotted rope and tie it to the truck to use to haul ourselves out.
Had an Aunt and Uncle and cousins lived in Delhi and we would swim in the canals. What you described WC and also dead animal carcasses, rolled up fencing and barbed wire and other trash. We still swam in them and did what you did, take a rope and tie it off to a nearby almond tree.
ReplyDeleteLuxury! Where I grew up the canals were not lined with concrete, just good old fashioned Colorado clay . And then the banks were so overgrown with shrubs you couldn't get out anyway!
ReplyDeleteGood times......
Now there's a woman who loves her dog.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a teenage boy, a group of us would ride them on air mattresses. We would do the same in the storm drains after a heavy rain. We knew where to get out. Great fun on a summer day!
ReplyDeleteNobody ever paid any attention to us. Nowadays they call out the Swift Water rescue dufuses with all their cool gear. What a nation of sissies we have become. All because of Saaaaaafty.
I almost drowned in an irrigation canal in Arizona as a kid. Never did that again.
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