Near-Drowning: River & Lake

A stranger hauls you out blue-lipped and still, rolls you belly-down over a barrel, then pumps your arms Silvester-fashion until the river comes back up in a gout. You breathe, barely, but your lungs kept a share of the water, and by nightfall a fever announces congestion of the lungs.

• Bedridden with fever, no riding, working, or fighting until it breaks
• Voice reduced to a drowned whisper for 3 days
• A barking, tearing cough that doubles you over
• /me lies grey-faced beneath a pile of blankets, each breath rattling like gravel in a pan

Recovery A week under a doctor's constant watch, untreated, the rattle in your chest wins.·Doctor, urgently

You walked out of the water on your own two feet, coughing but proud. Hours later the true drowning begins, a wet, rising rattle in your chest, blue creeping into your lips while you sit bone-dry by the fire.

• Cannot exert yourself at all, walking to the privy leaves you gasping
• Wake choking every few hours for 2 nights
• Must be watched through the night; alone, you might not wake at all

Recovery 4 days if a doctor sits you upright and watches the nights, untreated it turns to pneumonia.·Doctor, urgently

The rapid handed you down its whole length, one boulder at a time. Two ribs are broken, your scalp is opened to the bone, and you swallowed enough river to float a skiff.

• No lifting, no riding at a trot, 4 days
• Head wrapped in a bandage that seeps pink for a day
• Guard your left side; a laugh or a sneeze buckles you

Recovery 5 days strapped and stitched with a doctor's care, 10 rough ones without.·Doctor required

Your coat hooked a sunken cottonwood and the river held you under like it meant it. You tore free with the last of your air, leaving the coat, two fingernails, and something in your right hand that broke grabbing the branch.

• Two fingers of your gun hand splinted together, no pistol work for 3 days
• Coat, hat, and saddlebags gone downstream
• You startle badly at held breath or a face full of water

Recovery Fingers set straight in 5 days with a doctor, crooked in 10 without.·Doctor required

They pulled you out coughing a fine pink froth, which the old ferryman eyes and pronounces a bad sign. He is not wrong. Your chest burns like you inhaled a stove.

• Coughing fits triggered by cold air or laughing, 3 days
• Sleep sitting up for 2 nights or wake strangling
• /me coughs hard into a kerchief and checks it before folding it away

Recovery 3 days of rest under a doctor's eye, toughing it out invites the fever.·Doctor required

The current introduced your chest to a granite boulder at speed. One rib is cracked, and every cough, of which the river has left you many, feels like a knife turning.

• No lifting anything heavier than a coffee pot for 3 days
• Favor your right side, arm pressed to your ribs
• A cough that ends in a wince, every time

Recovery 4 days if a doctor straps the rib, 7 aching ones if not.·Doctor required

A rock parted your hair the hard way. Scalp wounds bleed like they are paid to, and by the time you crawled ashore you looked like the losing end of a knife fight.

• Six silk stitches above your ear, hat sits crooked for 4 days
• Blood-crusted collar until you find a wash basin
• Dizzy if you stand up fast, for 2 days

Recovery Stitches out in 5 days; unstitched it heals into a proud white scar and takes 9.·Doctor required

The cramp took your leg mid-lake and you went down twice, clawing at water that would not hold. Someone's rope found you on the third rise. You have never been so tired in your life.

• Utterly spent, no running, swimming, or brawling for 2 days
• Calf cramps seize the leg at bad moments for 3 days
• /me flinches at the slap of water against the dock pilings

Recovery 2 days of rest and beef broth; 4 if you insist on working through it.·Doctor required

The river carried you a full mile before it grew bored and shoved you onto a gravel bar. You crawled out on all fours, boots gone, and lay there listening to your own heart argue with the current.

• Barefoot until you buy or borrow boots
• Every muscle stiff, walk, never sprint, for 2 days
• Palms and knees raw from the gravel crawl

Recovery 2 days before your legs forgive you.·Doctor advised

You kept your head above water, mostly. The share you swallowed comes back up in stages through the evening, along with your dinner and your dignity.

• Retching fits for the rest of the day
• Gut cramps and a sour stomach, only broth and coffee sit right for 2 days
• You turn green at the smell of fried fish

Recovery A day of misery, 2 if the river was low and muddy.·Doctor advised

You stopped yourself the only way the river allowed, by jamming your fingers into a crack in a boulder and refusing to let go. The boulder won two of the fingers.

• Two fingers on your left hand splinted and purple for 3 days
• No fine work, buttons, knots, and cards all defeat you
• A grip that aches on cold mornings this week

Recovery 3 days splinted; a week of stiff mornings if you skip the splint.·Doctor advised

The boat went over slow and stately, and the gunwale caught you across the back on its way past. You surfaced under the hull, found air, and kicked ashore towing your pride.

• A plank-wide bruise across your shoulder blades
• Stiff back, no rowing or heavy lifting for 2 days
• Whatever was not tied down in that boat is gone

Recovery The bruise blooms for 3 days and yellows in 5.·Doctor advised

Snowmelt water finds the bones fast. By the time you dragged out you could not feel your feet, and an hour by the fire only upgraded the shivering to violent.

• Shivering fits into the evening, hands too unsteady to shoot straight today
• A barking cough that hangs on for 2 days
• /me huddles close to the fire, steam rising off wet wool

Recovery A night wrapped in blankets by a big fire; a lingering chill for 2 days without one.·Doctor advised

You went under once, found the bottom with your boots, and came up swearing loud enough to scare the herons. Everything you own is wet. You are otherwise intact.

• Soaked through, every match, biscuit, and cartridge needs drying
• Sneezing and sniffling by nightfall

Recovery Dry by morning if you build the fire big enough.·No doctor needed

One submerged rock, placed by providence exactly where your knee wanted to be. You hopped ashore cursing in a language the ferryman did not recognize.

• A limp on the left leg for a day
• Bruise the size and color of a plum
• /me favors their left knee climbing the bank, hissing through their teeth

Recovery Right as rain in a day, two if you keep kneeling on it.·No doctor needed

One good mouthful of river went down the wrong pipe. You spent five minutes on hands and knees on the bank, coughing like a consumptive mule, and then it was over.

• A raw throat and a gravelly voice till morning
• Coughing fit whenever you talk too fast today

Recovery Gone by breakfast.·No doctor needed

You were in, you were under, and you were out, all inside ten heartbeats, some animal part of you swam before the rest caught up. The fear arrives afterward, sitting on the bank.

• Hands shaking for the next hour
• A healthy new respect for fords, you check the depth with a stick now
• /me stares at the river a long moment before turning away

Recovery Nothing a dry shirt and a strong coffee will not fix.·No doctor needed

A fallen cottonwood reached out across the current and caught you like an old friend. You went hand over hand to the bank with nothing to show but scraped palms and a story.

• Palms scraped raw, gloves sting for a day
• You owe that tree a nod every time you pass it

Recovery Skinned palms mend in a day.·No doctor needed

Your horse waded in after you like it was nothing, you caught the stirrup, and it hauled you to the shallows wet only to the ribs, wearing an expression of profound equine judgment.

• Boots full of water and a bruised ego
• Your horse expects sugar for this, and will remember if none comes

Recovery Dry by the time the coffee boils.·No doctor needed

The river takes you around the bend, spins you once as if deciding, and sets you upright on a sandbar in front of three astonished fishermen. A moment later your hat drifts into your lap. Even the river seemed impressed.

• Not a scratch on you, the fishermen will tell this story for years
• You walk out of the river like you planned the whole thing
• /me wrings out their hat, sets it on, and touches the brim to the current

Recovery None needed, though the tale gets a foot longer every telling.·No doctor needed