Nate and Fernando were washed out into the swirling water, and ended up popping up together. Fernando swam to Nate and they just tried to stay together. "And then a minute later, we were drowning again," Nate says. "And we popped up again and...we were still moving forward at about 50 or 70 miles an hour, but the water wasn't coming over our heads any longer. So you could breathe. And that was the main goal—to breathe."
As the currents swirled around the two, they tried to keep their heads above water. They were again separated and reunited in the mayhem. When they both grabbed and held onto a telephone pole and to each other, the water calmed and then Nate says Fernando kept saying, "It's over." "And then all of a sudden we felt the water surge again and [Fernando] looked at me and said, 'It's not over.' And I felt his hand on the back of my shirt and I felt his hand slip away...And then I was drowning again."
When Nate finally got up for air and the water had calmed again, "That is when I felt like I was in a video game," he says. "And it's the only way I can describe the sensation of my body traveling at such a speed in one direction and you visually are looking at the obstacles in your path—You have the presence of mind to have all of these obstacles coming in your path and you are really thinking about the present. "
