Click on this link to see an excellent video on Submerged Hydraulic jump, i.e. why low head dams and hydraulics are dangerous and how they are formed:
http://krcproject.groups.et.byu.net/index.php
Nothing like having been in one.
I’ve experienced leg entrapment too.
A little long and technical
but an excellent explanation. Interesting how the hydraulics change with different water levels upstream and downstream. There are so many dams around here that I just stay away from all of them. Thanks for posting - good reminder.
Now if we could only learn ya
to stay out of them holes!
great explanation
too bad people who need to listen to it - recreational kayakers without any idea as to what it is they are doing - never will see it (or have the patience to sit though 20 minutes of “boring technocal scaremongering”)
very good video and explanation …
… thanks for posting , seriously important topic . One never knows how many people will watch this , the more it’s put out there , the more chance it has to stop the unknowing from going over or getting close the lowheads .
Death hydraulics…
For a while I worked as a family doc in Montana. Had a lovely couple as patients and delivered their baby. Two weeks later he went over a diversion dam in a canoe and got caught in the rebar at the bottom of a hydraulic, drowned. I still remember the horror and sadness…
Thanks
That was most excellent.
I’m so grateful for Pnet. We have
several of these in our area that I intended to run… not knowing the danger. In fact, there’s a lot of things I’ve learned here that have saved me much time, money and very possibly, my life.