Episode 177: Robbie Danger Webb

Snowy River Rescue: What Happened When a River Crossing Goes Very Wrong

A few weeks ago I bumped into Robbie Danger Webb while they were riding in Canberra. They were on their way to the tart line of the Monaro Cloud Ride, a thousand-kilometre ultra race through the Australian high country. Undertstandly, they had were equal parts excited for the race and also a little cautious, running through everything in their head. We had a good chat, I wished them luck for a great race.

I followed their dot, excited to track them through the event and then about 500 kilometres in, things went very wrong. Robbie ended up stranded on a small island in the middle of the Snowy River, in the dark, in fast water, with their bike, waiting for a helicopter.

I caught up with Robbie a couple of week’s after this all happened and got the lowdown on the whole experience.

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The Race and the Crossing

It should be said that the Monaro Cloudride is not a beginner event. It takes riders through Kosciuszko National Park and the Victorian Alps, covering some of the most remote and genuinely alpine terrain in Australia. The Snowy River crossing sits almost exactly halfway, right on the New South Wales and Victoria state border near Suggan Buggan. After the river crossing point, there is a multi-hour hike-a-bike called the Tingeringie Wilderness Crossing and most riders describe this section as one of the hardest parts on the course.

Robbie arrived at the Snowy River just as it was getting dark. In an ultra race this means you need to decide whether to wait eleven or twelve hours for daylight, or to cross in the dark. In this event most competitors will only be sleeping five hours a night at best so making the decision to stop for so long is a significant call.

“I looked at the instructions, I looked at the river, and I thought, okay, I’m gonna give it a go. I could always go back.”

Robbie had read the course notes about the river crossing and checked the maps. They’d thought through what would happen if something went wrong and checked out what the next solid ground was downstream from the river. They then assessed whether they thought they’d be able to reach it safely. Robbie is well versed with river crossings and this really came across when they retold the experience.

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What Happened in the Water

Robbie decided to cross with everything in one go, having their bags on one shoulder, and the bike on the other. Their reasoning was pretty straightforward, they were tired and multiple trips would equal more exposure time in the cold river as well as build up more fatigue. In an ultra you are already running a calorie and sleep deficit so both of these would be best avoided.

The river crossing started out as planned and Robbie made it halfway across. Then they lost their footing and slipped. Before they knew it they were waist deep in the river.

“In fast water, you need to keep your bike above the water because the current is quite strong, and once the mass and the size of a bike is being pressed against by the water, the pressure builds quite quickly.”

Once the pressure builds from the force of the water pushing up against the bike, you need to get the bike out or turn it to release the force of the current. Unfortunately Robbie couldn’t do this and the water took hold of them and their bike. Thankfully they were able to get onto a small island in the middle of the river, big enough for a person and a bike, not much else.

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Problem-Solving from a Very Small Island

The first decision they made was not to panic which I think is critical and shows Robbie’s experience to keep level headed. They got out of the water, got their bike onto the island, and got into their emergency bivy and it was only then that they started thinking through every option and starting to problem solve.

Go forward to the far bank? Unclear whether that was possible from their position. Go back to the starting bank? The same uncertainty. Leave the bike and swim out unloaded? That meant leaving behind warm gear, first aid, everything. Sit tight and wait for other riders? The nearest ones were still in Jindabyne, about 50 kilometres back, which put them roughly 16 hours away.

“I started to think, okay, this is now a 50/50 rather than a 90/10 in terms of my confidence level. Both those things started happening as I was problem-solving, which also then increases the risk of anything you do because you’re already colder and more fatigued than you were.”

It took a couple of hours of working through and problem solving all possible scenarios before Robbie eventually made the cal to trigger an emergency rescue.

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Simon, the Helicopter, and the Bike Rescue

While Robbie was on the island working through their options, a competitor named Simon was on the far bank. He had crossed at around 4pm, was resting. He’d crashed earlier in the race, fractured their rib and was running on almost no sleep. He could see that something was wrong but couldn’t tell in the dark and across the loud water.

Simon has very bad eyesight. He used his phone magnifier to read the small screen on his Garmin inReach and texted emergency services one letter at a time. Simon is an absolute legend, Simon.

Robbie also texted for help through their inReach, relayed through Garmin to local emergency services. And then a police rescue helicopter appeared in the dark over the Snowy River and Robbie was winched to safety.

One thing Robbie didn’t fully anticipate was that there was no room on the helicopter for the bike. So their brand-new bike, fully loaded with brand-new Old Man Mountain bags and gear, was sat on a small island in the Snowy River while they were subsequently airlifted to Bairnsdale Hospital, 600 kilometres south.

The next morning, Robbie was on their phone from the hospital and the bike community answered. Cal and Joan from Jindabyne drove a four-hour round trip on a dirt road to retrieve it. Others coordinated the logistics to get the bike back to Canberra and Robbie got off the bus at Bairnsdale in hospital pants with a plastic bag of wet clothes and described it as very much the opening scene of 28 Days Later, just in regional Victoria.

I’m happy to reporr that since recording this episode, Robbie has been reunited with their bike. Everything is accounted for and in tact, it’s just a little smelly.

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No Shame in Calling for Help

One of the biggest things that came out of this conversation is there is no shame in needing to trigger a rescue. In Robbie’s words,

“There’s no shame in calling for help. Not only in yourself, but also for search and rescue to be effective, we need to not be ashamed of it for other people’s sake.”

Search and rescue exists to be used and it isn’t a system reserved for catastrophic failure. If you have reasonable grounds to believe a situation is beyond your ability to safely resolve, that is exactly the threshold of needing to trigger it.

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The Bigger Picture: Experience, Complacency, and Keeping Your Head

Robbie mentioned something called the normalisation of deviance which is the idea that every time something risky goes fine, you are one small step more likely to accept that level of risk as normal. The more competent you are, the more your risk tolerance can creep up.

On the other side of the coin, those years of experience which Robbie had amassed, allowed them to stay calm while sitting on a very small island in a cold river in the dark. Robbie did not panic but instead assessed the situation, made sure to stay warm as a priority and then made a decision based on information, not fear.

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Update Since Recording

Robbie has been officially confirmed by Guinness World Records as the first openly trans person to circumnavigate the globe by bike. The record took longer to come through than the ride itself did!

You can hear the full story of that world record ride in Robbie’s first episode on Seek Travel Ride, linked here.

Folllow them on instagram via @DirtDropRobbie

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