MO Crews Save Woman Clinging to Roots in Missouri River

BRIDGETON—A woman who fell into the Missouri River clung to tree roots in a swift-moving current Wednesday night until firefighters pulled her to safety.

The unidentified woman had fallen in as she walked her dog in Riverwoods Park and Trail, said Assistant Chief Jim Usry of the Pattonville Fire Protection District. The woman used her cellphone to call 911 at 8:44 p.m. Wednesday.

Bridgeton Police Capt. Dennis Fitzgerald said the woman had slipped off a bank and was unable to climb back up.

The St. Charles City Fire Department and the Pattonville Fire Protection District launched rescue boats, as other firefighters and police officers walked along the river bank searching for the woman.

"It was pretty miraculous she held on the way she did," Usry said.

Recent rains had elevated the river, and it was moving rapidly. In addition, tree limbs and other surface debris were floating by, putting the woman in further jeopardy, Usry said.

One problem for rescuers is that, when dispatchers pinged the woman's phone, it located her in a wrong spot. In fact, the first location showed almost 200 yards from where rescuers eventually found her. The topography of the park had obscured the signal.

Fifteen minutes after she first called, rescuers still hadn't found her. One fire truck parked on St. Charles Rock Road and Missouri Bottom Road, then two firefighters sprinted about a mile to the river's edge.

Dispatchers even tried to access her phone through Apple support.

"They were working every angle," Usry said.

Subsequent attempts to ping her phone were able to pinpoint where she was, and rescuers found her at 9:12 p.m.

The woman, in her 40s, had been in the park after it closed. Bridgeton police have a key to the gate at the park entrance and had to open it to let rescue crews have access.

Once they found her, rescuers tossed a rope to the woman, but "she had grown cold and tired from holding on to the tree roots and was unable to securely grasp it," the Pattonville Fire District said on its Facebook page late Wednesday.

The woman lost her footing, and a Pattonville firefighter/paramedic went into the water to grab her. The firefighter then swam upstream, with the woman, and grabbed a rope tossed to him by fellow firefighters.

Fire officials say the steep river bank and swift current made it difficult for rescuers to pull the woman out of the water. Once a rescue boat arrived, crew members pulled the firefighter and woman into the boat and took them to shore.

The woman was taken to a hospital for treatment of hypothermia. She had been in the water for 35 minutes. The water temperature was about 40 degrees, Usry said.

Usry credits the number of rescuers at the scene as a big reason they were able to save her before extreme symptoms of hypothermia set in, such as disorientation, slowed heart rate and muscle cramping. Last August, voters in the fire protection district approved a tax increase that helped put a fourth person in an engine company fire truck as they respond to emergencies. The captain at the scene of Wednesday night's rescue was able to split up his crew so they could search more rapidly, Usry said.

"Every minute counted," he said.

None of the rescuers was hurt. The woman's dog also was saved, fire officials say. The dog, muddy and wet, had been on the river bank near her.

The rescue was in the 136-acre Riverwoods Park and Trail, which is bounded by the Earth City levee on the east, the Missouri River on the west, Interstate 70 on the south and St. Charles Rock Road on the north. Some of the trails extend into unincorporated St. Louis County.

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