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Subject 15's Experience

Laura L. – Paddler

When Laura was young, she spent some time recreational boating on motorboats with family and friends. In her twenties she took up canoeing and now in the last couple of years she’s started kayaking regularly.

Watch Laura L. go through the experiences below.

Pre-Interview
Stand-Up Paddleboard
Fishing Boat
Cold Water Tank
Warm Water Tank
Post-Interview

Laura was in a boating accident when she was young. She was with friends, and they were on two motorboats, heading the same direction, side by side. Another boat came from the opposite direction, and actually came in between them, which caused big waves and the next thing she knew, the other boat came up on top of the back corner of the boat she was in. Thankfully they didn’t tip over, no one was hurt and there wasn’t any major damage. But it was very frightening – and none of them had lifejackets on.

Because of that boating accident, she is now nervous and wears her lifejacket all the time, “I wear my lifejacket, I don’t sit it in the front, and I don’t use it as a pad, backrest or anything, I wear it.”

“It was a shock when I fell. It was unexpected and it caught me off guard.”

After going through the Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, Laura says she was surprised, and could definitely see how someone could fall unexpectedly into the water while out boating. “It was a shock when I fell. It was unexpected and it caught me off guard.” She says each one of the experiences caught her off guard and she had a gasp reaction to all of them, even though she felt an element of safety being in a controlled environment.

With the dunk tank experiences, Laura found that even though the warm water was more pleasurable to land in than the cold water, both were unexpected falls. And with both falls, water went up her nose and, in her mouth, and caused her to panic.

“And of course, that causes more gasping, and also coughing and gasping as I was trying to get back up to the surface. My breathing was accelerated as if I were running down the street, running away from somebody.”

After going through the cold-water experience, and learning it was the same temperature as Lake Simcoe, ON in June, Laura feels that she is now going to pay more attention to the water temperature before heading out again in her kayak.

She would also try to encourage more people to wear lifejackets knowing anything can happen unexpectedly when you’re boating. “With a lifejacket on, you're going to have an opportunity to get to the top and start breathing and start self talking and say, ‘just breathe, calm down,’ so that you can do what you need to do in order to get to the shore or hold on to the boat until help gets there.”

“With a lifejacket on, you're going to have an opportunity to get to the top and start breathing and start self talking and say, ‘just breathe, calm down,’ so that you can do what you need to do in order to get to the shore or hold on to the boat until help gets there.”