Incident on Lake Balboa

Lake Balboa Park, an 80 acres recreational facility in the Sepulveda Basin is the same basin where the US Army Corps of Engineers built the Sepulveda Dam in 1941 to hold back flood waters along the Los Angeles River.  You can also find the Donald C Tillman Water Reclamation Plant there, which treats San Fernando Valley sewage and pumps the treated wastewater into Lake Balboa. 

In other words, except for the ducks, no one in their right mind would go swimming in Lake Balboa. EWW! 

There are a lot of fun things people can do on and around the lake. Barbecue pits for family picnics dot the landscape, a 1.3-mile jogging path forms its perimeter, a beautiful playground is available for the kids, there’s fishing, and paddle boats, and kayaking. Eleven years ago, my dear friend Joe and I discovered kayaking and signed up. We took a required class, passed the test, and we’ve been boating on the lake ever since, without incident. 

I had a severe hearing loss 25 years ago where a virus stole most of my hearing. The ENT specialist told me I’d be deaf one day, so I’ve been studying American Sign Language (ASL) ever since. Today, I’m near fluent. To understand non-signers, I wear hearing aids, but there are many environments where they don’t help much. Since they cost $6000, I leave them in a special case in my car to keep them from getting damaged when I’m running around the lake or kayaking.  

Understanding Joe, who has a deep voice, is almost impossible even with the hearing aids. I tried teaching him some basic signs, but his motivation and interest in learning is laxed. On Monday, we were kayaking on Lake Balboa for about twenty minutes when I thought it important to communicate with my buddy. 

We had trouble aligning the boats due to choppy water. When I leaned to the right to get a glimpse of Joe’s mouth, the kayak flipped over tossing me into the treated sewar water. I’m a proficient swimmer, so no problem there. I didn’t want to lose the paddle and boat: my responsibility. 

I was weighed down by wet shoes, clothes and my Mini’s key fob was tucked into my socks. My first thought: Damn. I’ll never get into my car or be able to start it with the soaked fob. But first, I had to get out of the lake. 

I looked around, but everything was blurry. Damn. I lost my glasses. I yelled to Joe, “Get help from the lifeguards.” 

I’m sure Joe said something, but I couldn’t hear a thing. Fifteen minutes later a rescue boat showed up and two lifeguards pulled me in like a beached whale. My rescuers talked to me, but my lipreading skills are poor and even poorer without glasses. Even the best lip reader can get about 40-60 percent of a conversation. That’s why I focused on ASL. I get about 80% of what a proficient signer says to me. The lifeguards were helpless in their communication efforts, and in a few minutes, we were docked. 

Once on dry land, Joe and I rushed to my Mini to discover our fate. I was hoping to drive home, shower, and change clothes before the tainted water made me sick. The fob seemed okay, but it was soaked. Click. The door opened. I grabbed a towel from the trunk and sat on it. “Say a prayer, Joe, or we’ll be walking back to Encino.” 

Vroom! To my amazement, the car started. Miracles do happen!

Now, what’s the point of all this? If you have a deaf or hard of hearing friend or family member, I strongly suggest you learn the deaf alphabet and a few basic signs to make communication with your loved one easier. In this way, you’ll avoid your own Lake Balboa incident. If Joe knew a few basic signs, we wouldn’t have needed to align our boats and within seconds communicated our needs.