CHILLY WATERS DEMAND RESPECT.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

You don't have to be drunk, you don't have to be a poor swimmer and you don't have to be in rough water to drown on any of Oregon's rivers.

All you have to do is be in the water.

Current and cold will doom the best swimmer on the seemingly calmest water, local rescue experts say. And area rivers have plenty of each.

Water temperatures on the hottest days can still be close to 40 degrees, especially on the Mc-Kenzie and Willamette rivers. That can instantly sap muscles of much of the strength they would have in warmer water, and the strong current found in even the calmest stretch easily drains what's left.

"That's why we preach so strongly about wearing a life jacket," said Lt. David Sherwood of McKenzie Fire and Rescue. "You have a lot of forces involved when you're swimming in a river as opposed to a swimming pool. All of a sudden you're thrown into a situation where you have a strong current, you may have an undertow, you may have rapids, and when your muscles aren't firing the way they normally would, you don't have the strength to pull yourself out."

It's a message that goes out every summer, and yet every summer the grim numbers roll in. People are deceived by the warm weather or their own self-confidence or the placid water. They jump in, fall in, tip their boat, slip on a rock. Without a life jacket, they rarely survive.

"The McKenzie is so cold it's shocking; it's a shock to your body," said Kay Loos, co-owner of Oregon Whitewater Adventures. "It's scary seeing people just floating down even the lower McKenzie, that doesn't have many rapids, in collapsible boats with no life jackets. They hit a log, and they don't know enough about what to avoid or how to maneuver the raft. They think it's going to go by itself. You just don't realize how powerful the river is."

Sherwood said rivers aren't like roads and streets. You can't analyze statistics and find the most dangerous stretch or map the places to avoid.

Rivers change character with each year, each season, even each day, he said. Logs move, water is released from a dam or rain falls far upstream, and water that looked easy a short while ago can turn threatening.

"The river is dangerous at all spots," Sherwood said of the McKenzie. "You could be at the most seemingly calm spot, and there could be issues. It's one of those rivers that has many obstacles, and I don't think there's any one stretch that's more dangerous."

It's too soon to say how this year will stack up against past years in accidental drownings. So far, two people have lost their lives on Lane County rivers.

Robertson Chad Rivers, a 22-year-old from Kansas, died May 21 when the rafts he and two friends had launched on the Willamette River overturned near Coburg. None wore life jackets, and the water temperature was 48 degrees.

On Sunday, UO football player Todd Doxey, 19, died after jumping from Hayden Bridge into the McKenzie. The water temperature was 62 degrees; Doxey did not have a life jacket.

Lane County had four drownings in 2003, seven in 2004 and 11 in 2005, the most recent year for which official statistics are available. But at least three died in 2006 and at least fivein 2007.

Experts note that even water that is not ice-cold can quickly affect one's abilities. The temperature was in the upper 90s Sunday, about 35 degrees warmer than the water.

It's not known what caused Doxey to go under after jumping from the bridge. Witnesses said he began struggling soon after surfacing.

A plunge into even 60-degree water can cause a gasping reaction that can last 10 to 60 seconds and lead to hyperventilation and even fainting, according to information published by hypothermia researcher Gordon Giesbrecht of the University of Manitoba.

That's why life jackets are lifesavers. They will keep a person afloat and allow him to regain breath control, and then use the strength remaining to move toward shore.

"Instead of trying to keep your body from going under, you're automatically kept on top and you can easily kick out of most situations," Sherwood said.