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John Daley reportingJoseph Treadwell, Murray Fire Dept., Swiftwater Rescue Team: "To put it in plain simple terms, this is a drowning machine."
A close call on a particularly dangerous stretch of the Jordan River.
A man and his nephew got lucky this afternoon, after their kayaks flipped and left them holding onto tree branches along the Jordan River.
They made it, but not far downstream was a potentially deadly water hazard.
Rescue crews say most drownings occur when people over estimate their own skills and underestimate the river. Like most rivers, the Jordan may look calm, but in fact, can be a killer.
Rescue crews say Javier Pena and his nephew Erik should count themselves among the lucky ones.
Javier Pena, Kayaker: "The water is too fast and we roll over in the water and that's it."
They've kayaked many times on the Jordan. But today it was running high, cold and fast - 1000 feet a second when their kayaks swept into an undercut bank, flipping them out.
Soon, rescue teams arrived after calls to 9-1-1.
Lavon Eisenhower, Witness: "If they hadn't have caught them here there's a really good chance they wouldn't have made it, because there's one of those sucking ponds down the river and it's really deadly."
She's right. The pair were swept a quarter mile downstream.
For twenty minutes or more, they clung to overhanging willow branches before pulling themselves out.
Not much farther, near 4500 South, is a dam and a churning, recirculating pool where at least two people have drowned, including one earlier this year.
Joseph Treadwell, Murray Fire. Dept. Swiftwater Rescue Team: "You can see the tremendous power as it takes those buoyant objects, the balls and the logs and slams them into bottom of the river, brings them back up and slams them back down. We call it a Maytag effect. A drowning machine. And it is absolutely lethal."
Javier Pena, Kayaker: (Reporter question: "Scary?") "Cold. Not scary. There's a lot of people around." (Reporter question: "So you thought you would get out??") "Yeah."
Erik Hernandez, Kayaker: "It didn't really seem dangerous. But I know there's a dam over there. I've seen it before, but we didn't get stuck in there or anything."
Karla Hernandez, Sister: "People don't know about these things, like that they can drown, cause I didn't know. I just found out today that a whole bunch of people drowned here but I didn't know before. I just didn't want my brother and my uncle on that list of people, you know."
Both the man and his nephew were wearing life jackets, which they say helped a great deal. But rescue crews say even with a rescue jacket, and even if you're a strong swimmer, that's no match for parts of a river that truly can be a drowning machine.
