Burlington Man Swept Away By River Was A Builder, Doer

BURLINGTON, Skagit County - A dozen people were in the basement of the home on Andis Lane here yesterday, gathered around a cozy woodstove.

"He built it himself. He was quite talented," said Peggy Riedell, talking about the stove and about her husband, Donald James Riedell, who was known as Jim.

Riedell, 47, died the night before, swept into the Skagit River inside his truck as he was hauling rock to try to shore up a flood-damaged railroad trestle.

"He did die doing what he loved to do the best - trying to help people," said his wife. "He was scared to death that dike was going to break and flood all of Burlington."

As friends and relatives tried to offer support, they also talked about the man they'd known and how he died.

Born in Hayes, Kan., Riedell came to the Pacific Northwest when he was stationed at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, serving as a plane captain for A-6 Intruder jets. A-6 posters cover his home's basement walls, along with mementos of his service off the coast of Vietnam.

"I was 17 years of age. He was 20," said Peggy, who lived in Sedro-Woolley at the time, recalling their marriage in 1969. "Everybody said it wouldn't work."

Everybody was wrong. Among the people in the basement yesterday were their children, Donna Jo, 22, and Daryl, 26.

In the years that followed, Riedell worked for a Bellingham boat builder, and 13 years for a Burlington trucking company.

"He could fix anything, as long as it was made out of metal," said Peggy, who has worked for the Skagit County auditor's office 20 years. "He was so frustrated working for other people."

About two years ago, Riedell started his own trucking company, Rock-It-Man Enterprises, specializing in hauling heavy rocks.

The Riedells put everything they had into the company, pledging to pay everything off as soon as possible, and succeeding by this year. Even the 1978 International dump truck he was driving Friday night was paid for and running perfectly.

"He was a fanatic about maintenance," said Peggy. "It was an old truck, but it ran like a new one."

Walk around the house, and you can see what kind of man Riedell was, said a friend, Pat Brooks. "His home was everything to him."

From the hand-built stove in the basement to the extensive shop and the well-kept trucks and equipment in the drive, that pride of ownership is apparent.

Riedell's truck went in the water about 7:40 p.m. and he was recovered shortly after 9 p.m. He was pronounced dead at a Mount Vernon hospital. An autopsy was to be conducted, but the Skagit County coroner said it appeared he suffered no external physical trauma and apparently drowned.

When the truck was pulled out, the reverse alarm, a beeper used on commercial vehicles to warn bystanders the driver is backing up, still was sounding, said his son, Daryl.

"He was trying to save his truck," Peggy speculated. "He worked hard for that truck."

The accident is under investigation by the Burlington Police Department and the Washington State Patrol. Police reported the truck was traveling east on East Whitemarsh Road under the Riverside Bridge, also known as the Old 99 Bridge, when it "traveled onto the shoulder" and rolled into the river.

Peggy said she was told by other drivers that her husband's truck had been the third one in a line and that one driver had seen his headlights in his mirror, "and then they were gone."

"Somebody moved some barricades off the road," she said, "and there was about 4 inches of silt on the road, and he was sliding in that muck."

Services are being arranged through the Hulbush Funeral Home in Burlington.