By Aldrich Tan/Staff Writer

June 30, 2005

THREE RIVERS - A 43-year-old New York man vacationing in Three Rivers found himself stuck on a rock in the middle of the Kaweah River on Wednesday afternoon.

An hour later, a California Highway Patrol rescue helicopter lifted him out of the rushing river.

Kevin Ready, a computer programmer, wanted to jump across the river, despite his nephew's protests.

He said later he thought that if he could jump past the fast-flowing portion of the river, he could swim through the slower-flowing portion.

"You're underestimating the power of Kevin and overestimating the power of the water," his nephew, Riley Greene, 14, of Mission Viejo, recalled him saying.

Then Ready slipped off the rock and fell into the river.

The fast-flowing Kaweah river sent Ready downstream 200 feet before he climbed onto a flat rock in the middle of the river below Pumpkin Hollow Bridge. There he sat, awaiting rescue.

Saty Barry, 28, a waitress at the nearby Gateway Inn restaurant, watched Ready as he was carried downstream. She immediately alerted her manager to call 911.

"He looked like a rag doll," she said, "just tumbling and turning all over down the river. I thought that he was dead."

A Three Rivers ambulance team was first on the scene 20 minutes after the 911 call followed by rescue teams from Sequoia National Park and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The rescue teams stationed five men down the river on the other side of the bridge just in case Ready fell of the rock, said Steve Green, CDF fire captain.

At 3:40 p.m., a CHP rescue helicopter lowered a large basket. Ready climbed into it. Then he was lifted off the rock and dropped on the bridge.

He suffered minor sprains and bruises.

"He's so lucky to be alive," Gateway waitress Miranda Phelps, 22, said.

The reporter can be reached at atan@visalia.gannett.com

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