CHAMBERLAIN LAKE – Still haunted by the loss of his two good friends, the sole survivor of a deadly boating accident one year ago today returned to Chamberlain Lake this week to remember them and reunite with his rescuers.
Amid a heavy downpour, Scott Valente, 44, of Raymond crossed paths Monday with Robert and Susan Murchison, the Lincoln couple who pulled him from the frigid waters of Chamberlain Lake after the 17-foot motorboat he was riding in capsized and sank, throwing him and two of his closest friends into the lake.
Kevin Grant, 40, of Houlton and Douglas Harmon, 44, of Scarborough died of hypothermia, likely within an hour of falling into the water.
Among the supplies Valente brought with him Monday were a single beer in the brand each of his deceased friends liked best, and two packages of fishing worms. He intentionally put on the camouflage hunting pants he had on during the accident. They still bore the tear on one thigh that happened when the Murchisons pulled him out of the drink.
The boat he brought with him for this trip, though, was new. It was both larger and more powerful than the one that sank to the bottom of Chamberlain Lake.
Today, on the actual anniversary of the drownings, Valente plans to go out on the lake alone.
A year ago, the three men were just beginning what was supposed to have been an annual Memorial Day week camping trip on the remote lake when the wind picked up, the waves became choppy and tragedy struck.
“I want to finish the trip that we never made last year. It’s something I have to do,” Valente said.
“I know my friend, Doug, he would be very upset if I didn’t go. He looked forward to it all year and he would begin getting ready for it weeks in advance. I could almost hear him telling me [to continue the tradition]. I want to go up for my friends.”
A father of three, Doug Harmon had been Valente’s best friend for 30 years, since the two met as eighth-graders in Windham.
“We instantly hit it off,” Valente said. “We were like two peas in a pod,” with a shared interest in sailing and other outdoor sports.
Kevin Grant was married to a cousin of Valente’s wife, Nancy.
Last year’s Memorial Day boating trip on Chamberlain Lake would have been the seventh in a row, Valente said.
As difficult as Valente believed it would be to return to the lake this week to mark the one-year anniversary of the tragedy, he said it was something he needed to do as part of the healing process.
“I’m not sure how it’s going to affect me but I’m ready to deal with whatever comes. Life does go on. I have to be there for my family, my kids. There were times [in the year since the drownings] that I wasn’t the person I used to be,” Valente said in a telephone interview on Saturday, as he was packing and preparing for this week’s trip.
Though not his first trip back to the lake – he did return there last August to meet the Murchisons for the first time since the accident and to look for the submerged motorboat – he said the approaching anniversary was looming large in his mind.
Valente said he didn’t plan any particular tribute to his friends, just some time for quiet introspection near the spot where the motorboat capsized. “I don’t have any set plans right now. I’ll just go out and sit by myself for a while. I can do it silently, by myself.”
Though the nightmares, depression and anxiety attacks he’s been wrestling with over the past year have started to subside, thanks to some intense therapy and counseling, Valente did plan to bring his anti-anxiety medicine with him in case he needs it.
He speculates the fact he was about 50 pounds heavier than his friends and wasn’t wearing a life preserver prevented him from suffering the same fate in the lake’s 48-degree water. He thought the extra weight insulated him better and his treading water forced his heart to pump harder, which kept his circulation going.
“I don’t know how I made it through. At the hospital, my doctor said [surviving for two hours in such cold water] was impossible,” he said.
“I have a hard time with people who say, ‘It wasn’t your time,’ or that it was my ‘will to live.’ It wasn’t their time, either, and they both had as much to live for as I did,” he said.
Valente said it often is the little things, like picking up meat and other camping supplies, that continue to get to him.
“That’s something Doug and I used to do together,” he said quietly.
Valente continues to struggle with the aftermath on many levels.
“I have been pretty forgetful lately. My wife [Nancy] has to remind me about a lot of things. It’s due to the mental stress and the overload. I do have blank memory spaces,” he said.
“I ended up losing my mom in February [to cancer] and that set me back a little bit, but it was really quick. It was kind of sudden. I did get to spend a week with her in Florida before she died, but I wish we’d have had more time.”
With regard to physical after effects, Valente said he has regained some of the feeling in his feet, which suffered nerve damage in the icy water of Chamberlain Lake. Though the loss of sensation has not impeded his ability to walk, he said it feels strange sometimes. When he puts on his socks, “it feels like they’re full of holes.”
Perhaps some of the best medicine Valente has had recently is a new job that he loves and the close friendship that has blossomed between his family and the Murchisons.
A year ago, he was a construction worker, but after last year’s deaths he missed a lot of work and eventually was let go. He landed similar work after that, but found himself enjoying it less and less. More recently, he walked into a local diner and the woman who owns it offered him, perhaps jokingly, a job cooking breakfast and lunch.
After some thought, he decided to give cooking a shot.
“It’s a fit for me, this job. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll own the place,” he said, adding that the diner is so close to home, he can get back and forth to work on about a gallon of gasoline a week, “and that’s a big thing right now. Since I’ve been cooking and working at that job, I’m feeling better. I really am. I can’t remember a job that made me feel better.”
Monday’s meeting with the Murchisons was one of many since they saved Valente’s life.
“We all hit it off wonderfully. My wife and kids just adore them, not only for saving me but because of who they are,” he said.
“We’ve actually gone camping together a few times and they come down and stay with us every once in a while,” Valente said. “We’ve probably spent eight weekends [with the Murchisons] so far.
“They don’t want anything from me. At first I kept trying to give them things, but I needed to do that for my own peace of mind.
“It’s just a wonderful friendship. They are just salt of the Earth people with hearts of gold. It’s really strange. It’s like we’ve been friends all along. I consider them to be part of my family. I couldn’t have been saved by better people.”
dgagnon@bangordailynews.net
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