Number 9 Paul Templer In the 1990s, Paul Templer was leading a kayaking
expedition down the Zambezi River, near Victoria Falls, in Zimbabwe.
27-year-old Templer was operating a river tour business and, for years, had been taking
customers on excursions.
On the day that his life would be forever changed, Templer was accompanied by three
apprentice guides and nearing the end of the tour.
They were all in separate kayaks when they stumbled upon a group of hippos quietly wallowing
in the shadows.
An experienced guide, Templer knew how dangerous they could be and steered his group away from
them.
Suddenly, he saw one of the guides being flung into the air and then splashing into the river.
Templer paddled back to help him but, before he could reach him, found himself head-first
and up to his waist inside the throat of an enraged hippo bull.
He could feel enormous pressure on his body and fruitlessly struggled to escape.
He was only able to do so after the beast loosened the grip of its colossal jaws.
A second guide risked his life by paddling towards Templer and managed to bring him to
shore.
It was there that he discovered one of his arms had been stripped of the flesh from the
elbow down and crushed to a pulp from the elbow up.
Templer survived the encounter but his left arm was beyond saving and required amputation.
His road to recovery was long and he spent months in a deep depression after having to
take a desk job.
However, within two years of the attack, Templer was back on the Zambezi, leading an expedition
and using a specially adapted kayak paddle to navigate the waters.
Number 8 April Morton In December of 2019, an experienced Tennessee
kayaker died in an accident on Laurel River, in North Carolina.
31-year-old April Morton was considered an expert paddler, part of the Chota Canoe Club
in Knoxville.
An emergency call was placed, at about 1:45 pm, and paramedics arrived to find Morton
in critical condition, about 2 miles from the trailhead used to access the popular whitewater
river.
She’d reportedly gotten hung underneath a tree in the water, which she didn’t see
going into the rapids.
First responders took over resuscitation efforts from Morton’s friends and a doctor who happened
to be kayaking nearby and had rushed to her aid.
Morton was transported to a hospital in Asheville, where she was pronounced dead.
Number 7 Scott Puckett and Alex Ekern In 2019, spring flooding claimed the lives
of two kayakers after they’d set off on a swollen creek in Missouri.
Scott Puckett, Alex Ekern and Justin Seale had gone paddling near the small town of Walnut
Shade.
The men were swept over a low-water bridge and caught in a hydraulic, which is water
flowing on top of itself that creates a washing-machine effect which is difficult to escape.
None of the men were wearing life vests when their kayaks capsized.
35-year-old Puckett and Ekern, aged 23, were taken away by the raging waters.
Seale escaped by climbing a steep bank and went to get help.
The victims’ bodies were recovered in the days that followed, after the water level
had gone down.
Number 6 Thomas Christopher Lloyd In September of 2016, student Christopher
Loyd drowned after his kayak capsized on a fast-flowing stretch of the River Glaslyn,
in Gwynedd, Wales.
24-year-old Lloyd, who studied environmental management at Bangor University, and his friend,
Jack Swann, did several laps on a section of the river that measured close to 1,000
feet.
On the tragic last turn, Lloyd’s kayak flipped and he was unable to right it.
He collided with several massive boulders as Swann struggled to reach him.
Once he’d finally gotten within range, Lloyd was already face-down in the water, unresponsive.
Swann tried attaching a line to his body but couldn’t dislodge him as his foot was stuck
in the rocks.
Firefighters, police and mountain rescuers arrived at the scene but the conditions were
deemed too dangerous for retrieving the body.
A coroner would later report drowning as the official cause of death.
Number 5 Thomas Warden In early 2020, a British tourist died as he
and his girlfriend were trying to kayak across a lake in Argentina.
34-year-old Thomas Warden and Charlotte Inman were at the foothills of the Andes, and had
set off from an island called Isla Victoria on Nahuel Huapi, a glacial lake with crystal-clear
waters.
They were trying to reach the famous town of Bariloche.
The authorities had recently closed the lake to nautical activities because of the weather
conditions.
While out on the water, the couple faced powerful winds of up to 50 mph.
Both their kayaks were overturned but, while Inman was able to get back into hers, Warden
drifted away.
She desperately paddled back to shore where she went searching for help.
She was placed into a vehicle with heating and given hot beverages as well as a change
of clothes.
Inman was constantly asking if the authorities were looking for her boyfriend while repeating,
in a state of shock, “What a bad decision!”
Warden’s body was later found six miles off Bariloche and nearly 20 miles from where
he’d disappeared.
Number 4 Rod Johnston In 2021, a British man died while paddling
his kayak off a tourist beach near Cape Town, South Africa.
46-year-old Rod Johnston, a banker who had a seaside holiday home in the area, had set
off in calm conditions but the weather abruptly changed.
Johnston was forced to contend with high winds and strong off-shore waves.
He’d been lent a sleek surf-ski by a friend who’d visited him at Christmas but such
watercrafts are not meant to be used by amateurs, particularly in rough weather conditions.
It’s believed that he was dragged to open sea where his kayak capsized.
A rescue operation was launched, involving several vessels and a helicopter.
Shortly after dawn, his kayak was spotted floating adrift, five miles out to sea.
Johnston’s lifeless body was still attached to it by a short safety line.
A rescue diver was dropped from the helicopter and secured his body which was then airlifted
from the rough seas.
Johnston was survived by his wife, Debbie, and a 24-year-old son.
Number 3 Mary Neal In 1999, orthopedic surgeon Mary Neal, originally
from Wyoming, was kayaking on the Fui River, in Chile.
She went over a waterfall and got trapped at its base.
Neal struggled to break free from the bedrock but soon realized her efforts were fruitless
against the volume and sheer force of the water.
She spent almost 12 minutes submerged, a time during which the woman could feel her bones
breaking, before ultimately accepting that she was going to die, interpreting it as “God’s
will”.
Neal’s companions then extracted her from the water.
One of them, an EMT, remembered that she was “blue, waxy, no heartbeat, no breathing,
cold-to-the-touch dead”.
After going without oxygen for 24 minutes, Neal’s chances of survival were close to
zero.
Miraculously, she then recovered without suffering any brain damage.
Upon regaining consciousness, Neal would tell her companions that she’d been to Heaven.
She described feeling at peace, as her spirit was peeled away from her body, and that she’d
conversed with entities of unknown origins.
By her account, she watched from above as the other kayakers were performing CPR on
her.
She was ultimately told that she had to go back, and share her story.
The group was far from help and Neal had suffered multiple broken bones.
However, they were surprised to find an ambulance parked on a dirt road nearby.
Neal eventually made a full recovery but her ordeal wasn’t over.
Before being sent back in her body, she’d allegedly been forewarned that her oldest
son, Willie, was going to die young.
10 years after Neal’s kayaking accident and as she finished her memoir, 20-year-old
Willie was killed in a car crash by a distracted driver.
Neal’s story was featured in the Netflix documentary series Surviving Death.
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Number 2 Jeremy Worthy In May of 2020, harrowing footage out of New
South Wales, Australia, showed a kayaker’s final moments as he battled the swell near
Batemans Bay.
43-year-old Jeremy Worthy had gone out to fish but then got exhausted while pushing
against the tide, in an effort to get back to Snapper Island.
He uploaded a live video to Facebook, at around 12:21, which has been interpreted as a last
plea for help, with the man detailing the perils of his situation as the waves were
pushing him where he “didn’t want to go”.
He added that he didn’t want to be an “embarrassed fool” by calling Marine Rescue.
Just nine minutes after he’d posted the video, a member of the public found his empty
kayak and notified the authorities.
A rescue officer retrieved his body between Square Head and Sandy Place.
CPR was performed on Worthy but he was eventually pronounced dead at the scene.
Number 1 Kayak Killer On April the 19th of 2015, Angelika Graswald
and fiancé Vincent Viafore headed out across the Hudson River, towards Bannerman’s Island.
The water was cold, about 48 degrees, and the forecast called for rain but they paddled
out regardless.
On the return trip, several hours later, they encountered turbulent waves.
Viafore, who wasn’t wearing a life vest or a wetsuit in addition to using the improper
kayak for the water type, told Graswald that it would be “the adventure of a lifetime”.
Those would end up being his last words to her.
46-year-old Viafore’s kayak overturned and he was carried out by the current to ultimately
drown in the rough waters.
Graswald placed a 911 call, in which the strong winds were audible as were the waves battering
her kayak, claiming she was unable to reach Viafore.
She capsized as well but was wearing a life vest and was subsequently rescued.
Later, in an 11-hour police interrogation, the 35-year-old woman would tell officers
that Viafore was controlling, constantly pushing her into a lifestyle that she didn’t want,
and admitted that she wanted him to die.
Yet, she denied killing him.
According to the police, she’d confessed to removing a draining plug from his kayak
and a connector ring from his paddle, but that conversation wasn’t recorded.
Graswald was arrested and faced life in prison for second-degree murder.
Even though some media outlets had labeled her as the “Kayak Killer” Graswald always
maintained her innocence, claiming she hadn’t intended to kill her fiancé.
She ultimately pled guilty to the lesser charge of negligent homicide, for which she spent
just over two and a half years in prison.
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