Friday, January 2, 2009 by Dave Blum
It was sometime around 2000, while on vacation to Costa Rica, that the accident happened.  I was on a small, four-person boat with my friend Donna, our guide, Andrea, and our ship pilot, Marco, returning from a pleasant daytrip to Corcovado National Park. Minutes away from the beach, Marco informed us that we needed to stop and fix a fuel-pipe problem.  Looking away from the park and out at the glittering sea, I was chatting away to Donna about the wonderful lushness of Corcovado when all at once there was a loud rumbling sound, coming straight at us from the beach.  The other boat (at least twice our size) hit us at full speed, so hard and fast it actually came up, over and on top of us.  Suddenly I was hurtling forward, with something blunt and hard slamming into the small of my back.  The next few minutes are still a bit of a blur. Marco and Andrea were nowhere to be seen; Donna was bleeding from a cut to the top of her head, and I was sprawled out on the floor of the boat, my back on fire.

Both Marco and Andrea were lucky enough to have seen the other craft — a 10-person tourist boat — coming, jumping overboard at the last second.  Donna had seen it as well, ducking down and letting the boat slide over her.  I was the only one blind-sided — and my oblivousness nearly cost me my life.

To be continued…