Dramatic river rescue on pilot’s first day on the job

CASTLEWOOD -- Amanda Gibbs clung to a 9-foot-wide rock in a churning Clinch River on Wednesday, wondering if she would ever touch dry land again. Three hours earlier, the current overturned her canoe and nearly drowned her husband of 10 months, Jerry Gibbs. A poor swimmer, he emerged downstream battered, shoeless and ready to hike through the dense Castlewood forest for help.

After finding a house, he sent to his wife a savior in the form of two skids and a whooping rotor blade flown by civilian Virginia State Police helicopter pilot Steve Arnold. It was Arnold's first day on the job.

"It landed beside me, on the rock," Amanda Gibbs said. "One skid was on the rock, and the other was still in the air. I was so surprised."

A door slid open, and a member of the flight crew grabbed her hand and pulled her inside.

"You don't get too many of those calls," said Arnold, a civilian pilot of 15 years and owner of a private helicopter taxi service in Mountain City, Tenn. Wednesday marked Arnold's first shift with the Virginia State Police flight team based at Virginia Highlands Airport in Abingdon.

Just that morning, the team practiced a one-skid pickup. Arnold missed the drill. Instead, he was busy piloting a medical evacuation in Russell County.

His opportunity to breeze through the real deal arrived hours later via Jerry Gibbs' 911 call.

"There was just enough room there that me and my flight crew felt we could get in and put a skid down," Arnold said.

Amanda Gibbs, a Coeburn resident and a music-education student at the University of Virginia's College at Wise, had paddled the Clinch River countless times since childhood.

This time, she failed to turn around at her own danger mark and instead rowed into choppy waters.

Upon splashing into the river, Jerry Gibbs, also a U.Va.-Wise music-education student, pushed his wife toward the rock.

"The most terrifying part was being in the water and not knowing if I could get on the rock," she said.

Jerry Gibbs, unable to reach the rock, fought to keep his head above water as the current pulled him downstream. He survived with the backstroke -- the only stroke in his arsenal.

"I'm so beat up it's unreal," he said of the whitewater battle.

Dragging himself from the river was just the first obstacle. Next was the 40-minute hike upstream -- in bare feet -- to find his wife. The current had sucked off his shoes.

After finding her alive, he next had to fetch help. A nearby railroad track offered the only path to possible rescue.

Steel and tar burned under his feet.

"It was terribly painful," he said.

He has since wiped the tar from his feet. And he's fairly certain he can return to water.

"I don't think I'll get in a canoe again," he said.

Michael L. Owens is a staff writer with the Bristol Herald Courier.