Two teens take rickety raft for joyride on Columbia
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VANCOUVER, Wash. - Two local teens learned a valuable lesson about safety on the water during this heat wave after firefighters rescued them after they got stuck on the Columbia River on a makeshift raft.
A boater called 911 late in the day Sunday after spotting the 16 year olds floating on a rickety raft they had found at least a mile and a half upstream from downtown Vancouver. The raft can barely stay afloat even with no one on it.
Firefighters said the two teens got hung up on some wood pilings just west of the Interstate Bridge.
They were stuck until a Vancouver fire marine crew pulled them off and dragged the raft to the city's public dock at about 8 p.m.
"They might not have thought they had traveled a couple of miles down the river but again these kids are very, very fortunate," said Capt. Kevin Murray with the Vancouver Fire Department.
"If one of them would have fallen in the river, we would be talking about a different case scenario here more than likely."
Murray also said the teens had no way to control the raft because they didn't have a paddle. "So they're out here at the mercy of the current," he said.
The boys were not wearing the life jackets that were on the rickety raft. Murray said the incident is a good reminder for how deceivingly dangerous the river can be especially on a makeshift vessel like the one the teens used.
"Fortunately, our rescue boat is right here, so we were able to get up there rather quickly," said Jason Hathaway with the Vancouver Fire Department. "With that kind of current, it can tear apart that raft pretty quickly."
Firefighters said they worry more people will be getting into dangerous situations as people head to waterways across the area this week to cool off.
Sounds like an adventure. Why not? It is far and away above and beyond sitting around texting to the person sitting next to you or playing video games by the hour. Sounds like when I was growing up, all the way back when entertainment was what you did, not what was done for you.
@Yardpilot Lol. That's funny, I was thinking the same thing. Kids get bored and do ridiculous stuff. I've heard stories from my dad.
Huck Finn did it on the Mississippi and only had to worry about a couple of naked actors!
my god , i can't wait for day care, i mean school to start
I recall when I was 14, tying two intertubes together and spending an afternoon floating down the Willamette. Without life jackets. It's pretty depressing to realize that by todays laws, what we did was a crime.
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In all fairness, the region that we floated isn't used by commercial vessels (South of Wilsonville), and my friend and I were avid, capable swimmers.
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I do recognize the obvious dangers in what these two were doing.... I'm just at a bit of a loss to justify & support the new 'nanny state' laws regarding fun on the water. Although, as someone once pointed out to me... and as demonstrated so eloquenly by these two, common sense isn't all that common any more.
This makes me think of all the stupid things I did at a young age and wondering now how I survived. I hope they had fun. Young fun only is a brief savoring of our life.
The teenage brain is incapable of thinking of consequences of what they are doing...it is always 'in the moment'. They probably aren't any more stupid than any other 16 year old, all of which are bullet proof...nothing serious can actually happen to them! Almost all teens have done stupid things...probably more serious than this, I know I did...several times, and like them,  luck got them, and me, through the act. Darwin only manages to catch a very small percentage.
Clearly, they got this idea from reading Huckleberry Finn a perniciously evil book which needs to be banned from every reading list at least once every five years because that is the only way to guarantee that kids will continue to be interested in reading it.
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A happy ending to a dangerous adventure; lucky kids.
@Icarus Ya I'm interested what their next attempt will be. admittedly the first one was a litle under-anaylized but got to admire the spirit involved
This is why Darwinism doesn't work on humans. Smarter people save the stupid ones from natural selection. These 2 will probably live long enough to breed and pass on their "stupid" genes.
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There's always a giant meteor to thin the herd eventually ;-)
hey, I see a life jacket... they really put some thought into this one lolol
Gee,it makes one wonder if they were raised by wolves, BUT the wolves would be smarter than that so wonder what the parents are like ? Nothing dumber than doing what they did plus the fact no life jackets. Are these two in school ? have they not learned anything over the years from life ? I think that law enforcement should make them do comm service and that would be to go before other school kids and let them know why it's not such a good thing to do what they did and why....Parents should be contacted also to see if they are of this planet.
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@2nd Baseman Seems like a lot of them have been raised by Nintendo, Xbox and the internet. I truly believe they do not realize that riding a rickety raft down the Columbia isn't a video game that they get a "re-do" for. What happened to parenting?
Teenagers do stupid things. But this is probably over the top dor dumb kids. They've got a steep learning curve, but I'm glad nothing tragic happened. It sure could have.
 @Rob C Even my teenager shelf wasn't that stupid, and I some pretty stupid things.