Re: I bet he was an iboater
Thats wierd, it seems to work for me. Oh well here is the C&P
Three in fishing boat didn't hesitate to join rescue effort on the Mississippi
By David Hunn
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/04/2006
The fishermen turned their boat up the Mississippi. The sun had sunk in the sky; catfish and white bass filled the boat's holding tank. They were headed home.
But when they pulled up to the boat ramp at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, fire and rescue trucks crowded the cobblestone bank at the end of Chouteau Avenue south of the Arch.
A game warden ran up. A boat was pinned against a barge on the river, he told the fishermen; its occupants were panicking.
Could they help?
Justin Wolfe, 28, his brother Mat, 35, and Mat's son, Zach, 15, knew they needed to be back in Bethalto for a homecoming fair.
But they didn't hesitate. Illinois warden William Wichern jumped in.
Justin threw the camouflaged, 20-foot SeaArk into reverse and gunned it back into the Mississippi's main channel, fishing poles bending in the wind.
Wichern explained as they went. His department had just gotten a call from a frantic woman on a cell phone. She was out fishing with her husband and father, Wichern said, when their motor failed. The current sucked them up against the angled nose of a barge.
The Mississippi moves fast - maybe 10 or 15 mph at low flow, Wichern said. He knew the current could soon flip the disabled boat.
But he didn't know where.
The caller had said she was south of the Poplar Street Bridge on the Illinois side and could see the old Sauget power station's smoke stacks. Other barges hid her view of the main channel.
The St. Louis Fire Department already had sent a boat and helicopter, Wichern told them, but they hadn't had any luck yet.
Justin steered his boat alongside the first stack of barges, about three wide and four deep. They began scanning.
Nothing. The second and third stacks came up empty, too.
But as they turned toward the fourth, they caught a flash of white.
Someone was waving an oar.
Wichern could hardly see the boat. It was under the shadow of the barge's looming nose, and the sky was getting darker.
Justin gunned forward. But Wichern slowed him, and warned them - this could be dangerous, he said. The current could pull them in, too. The three said they understood.
When they got closer, they saw that the smaller aluminum fishing skiff had been pulled into the barge sideways. The current pushed at its upstream edge, pulling it down into the water. At the same time, the barge's nose pushed the other side high out of the water.
Two men were laying down in the boat, their feet braced against the barge metal. The woman stood in the middle, her back also pressed against the barge. She yelled "help us" over and over, Wichern said.
Even then, the skiff's upstream edge had sunk to within 4 inches of the swift current.
"They were about ready to go over," Wichern said.
They all knew what would happen then. The current would suck both the boat and its occupants under the long line of stacked barges.
"I don't think they would have made it out of there alive," Mat said later.
Justin quickly spun his boat around, and then let the current pull the rescuers toward the barge nose.
Mat grabbed the anchor rope. With just five feet to spare, he threw the rope to the other boat.
The woman scrambled for it, grabbed it, and tied it to a cleat at the bow.
Justin throttled gently.
The nose of the skiff pulled forward and the boat straightened.
On shore, one of the men said his legs were getting shaky when the Wolfes arrived. He and his son-in-law had been holding the boat from tipping for an hour.
Those rescued declined to be interviewed, nor would authorities identify them. But Wichern said the father told him he didn't know how much longer he could have hung on.
"I really think if they would have stayed out there much longer, things would have turned out differently," said Wichern, who often deals with such water rescues. "This turned out the way it did because three citizens stepped up."
