“For-ward,” the river guide yelled to us. We all paddled forward. Suddenly, a huge wave of white, bubbly water crashed over our boat while a boat from behind us crashed into us, and we went straight towards a large rock. Suddenly, all I could see was green, and bubbly. I was somersaulting towards the bottom of the river.

Surprisingly, I did not hit a single rock. I had heard many stories about how people got killed after they hit their head on a rock under the water. Then, I started to float up, but I was stuck under the boat. “Jesus, Please let me be alive still, somehow,” I thought. But, the weird thing was, I really wasn’t scared at all. I could feel the presence of GOD next to me. You know how when you pray, like you know deep down in your heart that Jesus is there; but you kind of imagine it. But this was real, I really could just feel like He was holding me, letting me breathe underwater, telling me that everything will be alright. I swatted my hands and a moment later, I was floating away from the boat, but the ice cold water was making me turn into a huge block of ice. My heart was pounding hard on the inside of my chest. I hope I’m not dead yet, I thought, as I floated around the water. My shoes slowly drifted off my feet.

Finally, I was “un-stuck” from under the boat, and I popped out from under the boat. None of the people from my boat saw me yet.

“She’s probably already dead by now,” my friend, Kalie said sadly. Tears welled up in her eyes. “It’s been like 10 minutes now already.” My sister was on the floor of the boat, sobbing hysterically. Everybody was silent. I watched them for a bit, and then, E.C., our river guide, spotted me from the boat, and yelled, “She’s ALIVE!” Everybody shed tears of joy, and shouted at E.C. to hurry up and pull me up. E.C. stuck the end of his paddle for me to hold on to. I quickly grabbed it, and he pulled me by my lifejacket buckles, and I climbed on to the boat. Everybody was so relieved and kept on asking me questions about what it was like to be stuck under the boat for a few minutes.

As we neared the shore, everybody was jumping in their seats to finally be able to take off their life vests after 3 whole hours of barely being able to breathe. After I fell into the water, nobody else did.

FInally, as we rode in the bus back to our campsite, and we had a delicious dinner to celebrate that I did not die. After dinner, my friends and I did a skit for the adults, and had s’mores. When it was about midnight, though, we were all forced to go to bed. But I was just happy that I was still alive.