We went camping and one of our favorite places was a couple hours drive from Yokota AFB…

It was so worth it, to get away from work and enjoy Japans beautiful country…

We camped at an area that had a dead pool and around the bend down river was the fast moving current…

My husband and I floated down river, instructing my sons to stay in the dead pool area…

As we go around the bend, I feel the strong current and know we need to exit now…

As we got off the rafts, around the bend comes my sons on rafts and I scream for John to grab one and I lunge for the younger one as the current rips him down stream…

I came up gasping, a iron grip on my son as my son strangles me and all of a sudden I feel the current rip us into the middle and I look desperately in those few seconds for an escape or we were dead…

I saw a boulder 20 feet to my left as the current dragged me under I pushed with all my might, eyes wide open gasping for air!!!

I made my body a torpedo and nailed the boulder with my left side, my son still in my grasp, and gasping for air…

As I waited for the spinning of my world to quit and gather air into my lungs, I see 3 Japanese adults headed for the water to help me and to this day, I can’t remember my exact words, but, I screamed in Japanese to stay out of the water… For good reason…

3 people drowned down river that day, and I wasn’t going to let anyone in that water after what just happened…

Within minutes my husband joined me on that side of the river and we made our way back in the slower current next to that shore to our campsite…

I woke in the morning with a basketball size bruise on my left hip and a hungry kid left at camp because, this mom went home to her bed…

I remember…

They had to cart me out by air trolley, I couldn’t handle the walk… circa 1984… Outside Tokyo, Japan…

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