by raskolnikov » Wed Jun 20, 2012 2:52 am
not woods interactions per say, but my dad and I were talking about this again because there's been a few drownings around here lately.
he used to be a park ranger near a reservoir here. saylorville, nefarious.
when they first built the spillway from a smaller reservoir to the large one, it was really popular to slide down it, and as you can imagine, that's a horrible idea because they have those concrete blocks at the end to prevent erosion which creates kind of a current that could trap someone against the blocks under the water. it did a few times and people drowned and the activity was obviously banned, but people still do it anyway. one of my dad's jobs was to drag for the bodies when it became a recovery mission.
another time some young guys were out canoeing and drinking at night and accidentally tipped the canoe, so they decided to swim to shore. one of them didn't make it, and he had to recover him too.
rangers also usually ended up being first to respond to vehicle accidents, and I guess there was a pretty horrific one where a drunk guy flew off a bridge and hit a support.
they also were responsible for cleaning up road kill. they were lifting a deer onto a truck once, and when they tossed it into the bed, it loosed its bowels all over them.
the best story though is when he was driving by boat ramps and night and saw headlights shining out from under the water at one. when he went to go investigate, a young man and woman, naked as the day they came into this world, were coming out of the water. they decided to park at the boat ramp and have sex, but they forgot to pull the e-brake on their VW bus.
some pretty shitty moments, but overall he loved that job.