Adrift For 20 Miles In Floodwaters -- River Survivor Ends Ordeal With A Request For Aspirin

ST. LOUIS - After Glenn Grotegeers' boat sank, floodwater swept him 20 miles until he pulled himself onto a levee near the northern edge of St. Louis.

All Grotegeers, 42, needed was an aspirin.

"He is lucky he came through alive," said Gary Dyhouse, hydrology section chief for the Army Corps of Engineers.

Grotegeers talked about his experience yesterday at a relative's house in Florissant, Mo. He wore a sleeveless blue shirt and blue shorts - similar to those he wore on his two-day river journey. The sun had burned and blistered his face, his upper arms and the scalp under his blond hair.

Grotegeers' river odyssey began Tuesday. After a breakfast of Rice Krispies, Grotegeers - a carpenter, Vietnam veteran and former Boy Scout and lifeguard - went in a flat-bottomed johnboat to his house to tear out some flooded carpet.

From his boat, Grotegeers saw two heating-oil tanks lodged near some trees. The tanks belonged to relatives. About 2:30 p.m., he steered the boat east of West Alton, Mo., to try to bring them back.

"That was stupid," he said yesterday. "Saving a nickel item is not worth losing a life."

About 4:30 p.m., Grotegeers had a 250-gallon tank roped to his boat. Then he saw a tree surge.

The tree smashed head-on into the boat. The boat sank.

"The life jackets saved me," Grotegeers said. He lifted one arm and then another to show where the jackets had rubbed his armpits as raw as hamburger. "I never used to wear a life jacket. I was always too macho."

Rough water persuaded him to do so Tuesday. When he popped to the surface, he grabbed another life jacket he saw floating. He swam to a tree and climbed into a fork in it. He shivered. He vomited river water he had swallowed. He thought about snakes but never saw them. He waited for morning.

At daybreak Wednesday, Grotegeers swam hundreds of yards east to a more open area. He thought someone in a helicopter might see him.

"I was scared. But then I thought, `What do I do, sit here three or four days or go on?' I pushed off."

He found a wooden platform in some trees and kicked it out. Holding it, Grotegeers kicked his feet and headed onward. Eventually, he abandoned the wooden platform, which had become more anchor than aid. He swam through trees. He passed propane tanks, pieces of lumber and boats. Muskrats swam past him.

"I thought somewhere I would find some ground, but I could never find a place to stand," Grotegeers said.

Ahead stood a bridge.

Grotegeers tried to head for the Illinois side of the bridge, but the current pushed him west.

He waved and called to cars 10 feet above him. He screamed at a man on a barge. He swung his life jacket at a helicopter. Five flew past him.

"When I got mad, it did nothing but almost drown me," Grotegeers said. "You have to keep your head."

During his ordeal, he thought about his wife, Kathleen Grotegeers; and his four children, Glenn Jr., 21; Anna, 18; Michelle, 8, and Gina, 3.

About 2 p.m. Wednesday, Grotegeers climbed onto the levee at a lock near north St. Louis. He walked, with wobbly knees, to the lock office.

"He was wet," said Ken Strong, the lock master. "He wanted to use the phone. He told us he had been swimming from West Alton. It was kind of shocking. But we had to believe his story."

Strong gave Grotegeers some aspirin while Grotegeers waited for relatives to pick him up.