A two-day canoe trip along the Clarion River in Elk County was supposed to be the last hurrah of the summer for Lower Burrell’s Austin Aikins and his friend, Chris Duca of Oakdale.

But it almost turned deadly when Duca, 21, went into an anaphylactic shock in a remote area of the Allegheny National Forest. The actions of Aikins, 20, and a stranger they only know as Randy may have saved Duca’s life.

Aikins and Duca met while attending Pittsburgh’s Central Catholic High School and the avid outdoorsmen enjoy fishing and hunting together. Aikins now attends Bethel University in Tennessee where he is a member of the Wildcats’ bass fishing team, while Duca attends Slippery Rock University.

With provisions for an overnight stay, the men put their canoe in the water near Ridgway and floated about 12 miles on July 31.

“We were having a blast,” Aikins said. “It was a gorgeous weekend, the weather was great, we were laughing and catching fish. You couldn’t ask for anything more.”

They got off the river in the evening and found a clearing to set up camp for the night. Then, not long after eating a packaged blueberry cobbler, Duca began vomiting. Aikins looked at his friend’s face and suspected the food was likely causing an anaphylactic seizure given Duca’s extreme allergy to nuts.

Duca said he left his EpiPen in his truck parked miles away because he didn’t bring any food containing nuts. An EpiPen is a device used to inject medication to treat serious allergic reactions. Nuts weren’t listed as an ingredient in the cobbler, but the men suspect some were in there.

At first, Duca considered toughing it out at the camp site. Aikins didn’t want to take the chance.

Left untreated, anaphylaxis can lead to death within an hour, according to the Mayo Clinic. The reaction can included shock, a sudden drop in blood pressure and trouble breathing.

“We’re packing and getting out of here,” Aikins said he told Duca. “I don’t want to be 2 to 3 miles upriver and your windpipe closes. I want to be somewhere better if that happens.”

Aikins said he recalled seeing a boat launch several miles away. He thought if he could get to the launch, he might be able to flag down a motorist along the nearby road or knock on someone’s door to ask for help. There was no cellphone service in that remote section of the forest.

Aikins said he was glad that he brought an old trolling motor with him. Without it to propel the canoe, he said paddling alone would have made for a much longer trip to the boat launch.

Duca’s symptoms began to worsen.

“I was very close to not being able to breathe as each breath was more labored,” he said. Aikins sat in the back of the canoe guiding the old, loud motor. He told Duca to bang on the side of the boat if his throat closed.

“It was pretty sketchy on the river but there was a good deal of moonlight,” Aikins said. “I was able to see the ripples and back eddies to know where the rocks were so we didn’t flip.”

They passed two groups of people on the way down and asked if anyone had an EpiPen. No one did.

Within about a half-hour, they found the launch and saw people huddled around a campfire at a home along the river close to St. Marys, Pa.

“Hey, my buddy is having an allergic reaction, can you help us?” Aikins yelled.

Someone in the group responded, “This is why we don’t come here on the weekends.”

Aikins said, “They thought that we must have been two drunk guys on the river.” He said he shouted some “choice words” back at the group.

Then he walked Duca to the side of the road. Aikins said he didn’t know if he should leave Duca while he tried to find a home or flag down a car. He made a quick decision and ran along the road, saw a car and flagged it down.

The driver told him to talk to his father behind him in the next vehicle. Aikins did and the man, known only as Randy, had three kids in the car. He agreed to take the two men to Duca’s truck to retrieve the EpiPen.

Then Randy led them to the nearest hospital. When they arrived, Duca was treated and spent the night. Aikins slept in the truck. Both men left the next day.

“I think if we would have waited longer, even five minutes, to get the EpiPen and go to the hospital, we would have been in trouble,” said Aikins, who credits Randy with “saving my buddy’s life.”

Duca said both men worked in concert to help him.

“In terms of the effort of Austin and Randy, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be here without it,” Duca said. “The hustle and determination to get me where I needed to be at the drop of a hat was what made the difference.”

Aikins and Duca are already planning their next outdoors adventure: they plan to go to Nebraska to hunt mule deer.

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