In many ways Jeff Furlong was an unusual guy. He didn't seem to be motivated by the same things that most guys his age -- twenty seven at the start of this story -- were. He was contemplative rather than outgoing; drank fruit juice rather than beer; had no interest in watching or participating in most sports; he considered chasing loose women as demeaning to both the male and the female; he was just barely on the ambivert side of introvert; he loved classical music and hated rap and hip hop; he was idealistic not materialistic; and he loved stage plays.
Given the above one might conclude that Jeff Furlong was either gay or a wimp. That he was neither also indicated his unusual persona. He was intellectual without being judgmental, could afford not to be materialistic because he had money from a trust fund set up by his deceased paternal grandparents; and he was the epitome of the cliché "tough as nails." While he had no interest in sports he loved the wilderness and working out so he had developed a body that was both gym and backwoods strong; plus he was six feet four inches (193 cm) tall and 230 pounds (105 kg) of muscle. He was no karate or kung fu devotee but it would take a real martial arts expert that didn't mind having some real pain inflicted upon them to best him in a fight.
Oh -- one more thing -- Jeff could give a shit what anyone thought about him. Unfortunately to many women that attitude came across as semi-hostile, and despite many features that most women would consider highly desirable he had had few worthwhile romantic or sexual relationships -- even though he had a relatively high libido even for a young in-shape heterosexual male.
Jeff worked as an environmental engineer for the non-profit Wild Things Inc. interested in keeping wild spaces wild and precluding Federal and State governments from giving in to special interests and making sweetheart deals with them for exploitation of natural resources that really belonged to the American people. His job made him many enemies with special interest corporations and individuals especially when he testified in Court against them, but as earlier indicated he didn't give a shit. He pursued what he and Wild Things considered protection of the environment for everyone with zeal unmatched in the experience of his adversaries.
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The origin of this story starts with a very unusual circumstance. The executives of a number of corporations interested in exploiting a wilderness area for its timber and mineral rights were planning an outing -- including their families -- on one of the rivers in the area. Jeff and Wild Things were intensely against not only the attempted exploitation but against the river trip. The powered boats that they intended to use for the outing could easily damage some of the pristine areas of the river basin, and also the planned expedition totally lacked an appreciation of how dangerous it might be.
Despite Jeff's testimony in a preliminary injunction hearing before a judge who seemed to be sympathetic to the special interest corporations, the Judge denied the preliminary injunction against the corporate big wigs and their families planned river trip. Therefore the trip would take place two weeks hence.
Jeff and Wild Things were particularly distressed since it became clear to them at the hearing that Tom Bering, the owner of the organization that was providing the boats and guides, was inexperienced and lacked attention to detail in his approach to safety. Especially damning was his statement that he knew that the most dangerous rapid on the trip (you would think that the name alone would cause concern -- "The Devil's Jacuzzi") could easily be negotiated rather than portaged around. Jeff knew from experience that portaging around The Devil's Jacuzzi was the only safe thing to do since at least six people that he knew of had drowned trying to run it in the last three years alone.
The CEO of the lead special interest corporation -- Ripit Corp. -- was most responsible for planning the trip. His name is Carleton Davis, a 55 year old graduate of Harvard's MBA program. While he talked his thirty two year old trophy wife Melissa into going along and finally convinced her that it was safe for their five year old son Wilson to also accompany them, Melissa made it clear that their two year old daughter Constance was not going -- she was staying home with the nanny and Carleton's parents.
Going with the Davis family in the same boat were Tom Bering, the naïve owner of the adventure organization conducting the trip, Carleton's male bodyguard Joe Reno, and Carleton's female assistant thirty eight year old Stephanie Baker and her thirty five year old husband Bill. There were five other identical boats with executives and some staff members from five other special interest corporations or organizations.
At least Bering was intelligent enough to require all participants to wear Type V life jackets and helmets, although he wasn't skilled enough to fit all of them properly.
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Jeff had a discussion with himself about whether to just let the disastrous rive trip happen, sure that lives would be lost, or to do something to minimize the resulting harm. When he found that children would be on two of the boats and that the forecast was for rain the night before the trip so that the river flow would be higher than normal he decided that he had to do something.
Enlisting the help of three other employees of Wild Things, Jeff constructed a cantilever with a pulley system having hooks on the cable running between the pulleys. The cantilever-pulley assembly was constructed immediately after the portion of The Devil's Jacuzzi that was the most dangerous. At that location a channel of the river that bent to the left was extremely dangerous and where most deaths had occurred while the channel that bent to the right was also intense but much more livable.
Jeff also arranged to have two boats from the local rescue organization -- of which he was a member -- just downstream of The Devil's Jacuzzi.
When Jeff and his coworkers saw the flotilla approaching Jeff shinned out on the cantilever so that he was just above the most logical part for someone flipped out of a boat to end up, two of his coworkers were positioned at the pulley system to assist Jeff, and his third coworker got on top of a rock to film the entire sequence.
Unfortunately, the testimony that Jeff gave in Court was spot on. When the first boat -- containing Bering, the Davis family, et al -- hit The Devil's Jacuzzi it was almost immediately flipped. Of course Jeff couldn't tell exactly who the people on the boat were, but the first two swept into the rapids were a child and a woman. Jeff grabbed one with each hand, put the child's poorly fitted life jacket on one pulley hook and the woman's on another and his coworkers started pulling them in.
The next person down the rapids was a man; he was too heavy to pull out but Jeff deflected him to the right, safer, bend. Next came another woman who Jeff extracted and lifted her life jacket onto a hook, then another man, out of Jeff's reach so that he went down the left, dangerous, bend. Two more men were trying to stay with the overturned boat, but first one, then the other, were swept away from the boat. The first Jeff was able to deflect to the right bend, the second went down the left bend.
The other boats seeing what happened, and strongly encouraged by the worker filming the event, motored over to a flat area just upstream of The Devil's Jacuzzi and disembarked.
The downstream rescue boats pulled the four men who had past the rapids out of the water. The two that went on the right side -- Carleton Davis and Tom Bering -- were shaken but without serious injury. Of the two that were swept down the left bend one -- the bodyguard Joe Reno -- was dead. The other, Bill Baker, had a broken arm and broken leg and had ingested a lot of water, but he would eventually recover. Apparently because Joe was so heavy the force with which his head hit a first rock and then a second one, was too much for his helmet to protect him.
Eventually, the five other boats portaged around The Devil's Jacuzzi and completed the trip although the child, three women, and two men from those boats left them and went with the rescue team once the four men who had been swept through the rapids were dealt with.
