To become a whitewater rafting guide in Maine you've got to go through some pretty rigorous training. A river boot camp, if you will. That's how I remember it, anyway, from my guide training days of the early 90s.

Yup. Up at 5 AM every Saturday and Sunday morning for a month. Gobble down a huge breakfast. Then off to the Kennebec River with every raft that Downeast Whitewater owned.

We'd raft the Kennebec Gorge ten times in a day. Each potential guide getting a turn at the helm navigating the rapids. Put in at Harris Station. Take out at Carry Brook. Repeat.

Nights we'd spend at base camp doing first aid and safety training. Learning what to do in every conceivable situation on the river. On the river, away from any help, it would be up to the guide(s) to administer first aid, so we had to know our stuff.

Upon completion of the training, there was one final hurdle to go: the Maine Warden Service. A comprehensive written exam. Then the dreaded oral exam before a board of examiners. You against the world it seemed. They grilled you. Asked you snap questions. Tested, tested, tested you.

But at the end of it, if you passed (and not everybody did), you knew you knew your stuff. And were ready to take a commercial raft with paying customers down the river.

Thank goodness for the tough training.

Because it's clear that it helped save a man's life on the Dead River last weekend, when two river guides fished an unconcious man out of the water, administered CPR, stabilized him, then brought him safely down river through nasty rapids to waiting medical help.

Kudos for your coolness and quick thinking in a critical situation. Kudos to the brotherhood of boatmen on the river that day who banded together to offer any and all help. You did it. You saved a man's life.

It's been done before. It'll happen again. It's all in a day's work for a Maine river guide, many of whom have gone on to get their WFR, WEMT or EMT medical training. You can count on them every time. Maine Guides: there's nobody better in the woods and on the water.