LAUREL — Billings resident Torben Fox is grateful to be alive after he was sucked through a water intake ditch on the Yellowstone River in Laurel Saturday. He made it out the other side with just cuts and bruises but he's sharing his story to warn others.
“There was a very calm moment where I was like, "I'm going to die here so I got to do something," said Fox on Monday in Laurel.
Fox never expected a calm Saturday fishing trip with a couple of his friends to turn into a nightmare.
"I had my paddle board and my two friends were on their tubes, so they latched their tubes together and then they had my ankle cuff from the paddle board hooked to one of them," said Fox.
They noticed the south side of the river was more shallow so they floated towards the middle where Fox could catch some fish.
"We realized we were kind of moving closer to the spillway. So I put down the fishing pole and I started paddling," Fox said.
No amount of paddling could prevent what happened next.
"I started being pulled in backwards because the tubes were behind me and they were pulling me with that ankle cuff," said Fox.
All three were wearing life jackets when Fox's two friends floated into the first chute. They held onto a log to avoid being submerged underneath the water.
Fox wasn't so lucky as he floated into the second chute.
"I hit the gate, I'm assuming, on my back. My back's got a big bruise on it," Fox said. "The next thing I know, I'm underwater with about three quarters of my body in the spillway already just holding onto the gate and that's when my arm is all bruised up."
He tried to pull himself up twice but couldn't break the surface.
"I’m either going to die here or I can either die or survive by going through. So I was like, "I have to let go," said Fox.
He crossed his arms and let himself go through the ditch.
"It was very dark. But then I started to see a glint of green light through the water and with my oxygen deprived brain, you're like, "I have to get to that oxygen. So I tried to surface too soon and hit my head," Fox said.
Despite hitting his head, he made it out on the other side, crawling up the rocky embankment to get help for his two friends. He caught the attention of two good Samaritans across the river and they called for help.
"We're all just a little banged up, bruises, cuts. But otherwise, we survived," said Fox.
He credits his prior military experience to his survival, but he hopes that incidents like this will never happen to anyone else.
"I really hope that they can put signage or buoys or something out there or just maybe more education about this particular area of the river. So this doesn't happen to someone else, especially a kiddo. I don't want a kiddo to go through that," Fox added.
