I can see this happening. Can’t tell you how many times I have pulled up to the Lillydale ramp and see people sight seeing the river there. Good job getting the old guy out of the water! 
Reading this wondering if these guys are IDO regulars?
Link to Pioneer Press Story:
Good Samaritans Recount River Rescue
Good Samaritans recount river rescue
87-year-old pulled from sinking car
By Nick Ferraro
[email protected]
Updated: 05/10/2010 11:06:20 PM CDT
Ken Pelton said he will never forget the scream that came from 87-year-old Arnold Bellis, trapped inside his Buick as it slowly sank into the Mississippi River.
Pelton was struggling to pull Bellis onto his boat during Saturday’s rescue when Bellis apparently hit the power-window switch. The window closed.
“Now he’s screaming,” Pelton, 57, said. “It was the most eerie sound I ever heard in my life. I was thinking, ‘He’s going down. … Now I can’t help him.’ ”
But Pelton, along with his fishing buddy Doug Nagle and another rescuer they know only as “Jeff,” stuck with Bellis over the next several minutes and pulled him to safety. Bellis was recovering Monday at St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he was in good condition, a hospital spokesperson said.
Pelton and Nagle had just pulled their boat up to the Lilydale Regional Park boat launch shortly after 3 p.m. when they noticed Bellis parked about halfway down the steep ramp. They had been to that launch “dozens of times,” Pelton said, and never had seen that.
“It’s popular for older people to sit in their cars at the top of the launch and watch the boats go by,” said Pelton, of Lakeville. “When we saw the Buick, we thought, ‘What if his car slipped out of gear? He could go right into the water. ‘ ”
As Pelton was walking up the ramp, Bellis offered to move his car. But instead of backing up, he “went full pedal down into the water and kept going,” said Nagle, who was still in the boat. “I was in shock looking at him. He was white-knuckling the steering wheel.”
Nagle saw a wheelchair in the back seat.
“I knew that couldn’t be good,” he said.
Nagle and Pelton watched as the car got caught in the current and began floating downriver, front end pointing downward.
“My buddy said, ‘Get in the boat!’ ” Pelton said. “And we raced over to him.”
Nagle maneuvered the boat to the driver’s side window. Lying on the front of the boat, Pelton leaned over to grab Bellis and pull him through the window as the water was rising inside the car.
“I said to him, ‘I’m going to get you out of here,’ ” Pelton said. ” ‘You might not like how I do it, but I’m getting you out.’ ”
Meanwhile, Nagle had grabbed a sturdy launch rope and clipped it to the car’s rear bumper. Holding the other end of the rope, he gunned the 100-horsepower outboard motor and headed crosscurrent toward shallow water.
“It doesn’t take a lot to tow a floating car,” said Nagle, 58, of Minnetonka. “We needed to get to shore. It was deep water where we were, and the car was almost nose down. I thought for sure we lost him.”
Bellis tried to swing his legs from underneath the steering wheel to get out, Pelton said. But when he swung his right leg over, the window went up.
“It went up right in front of my face,” Pelton said. “It was an awful feeling. He was saying, ‘Oh, God. Oh, God.’ I saw him trying to turn the ignition. He was disoriented.”
The other boater saw the scene unfold and swung his boat around. He grabbed an extra boat propeller he had and hurled it at the windshield, Nagle said. “It just bounced off the window … and almost hit me,” he said.
The boater then dove into the water, swam through the open passenger-side window and surfaced with Bellis.
“He was wonderful,” Pelton said. “He said his name is Jeff, and that’s all we know.”
Pelton jumped in and helped the boater bring Bellis to shore. The boater, who was holding Ellis’ head in his lap, suddenly said he had to leave, Pelton said.
“His wife, who was on the boat, said they had to be somewhere,” he said. “So just like that, they left.”
Pelton held Bellis until authorities arrived. “He said, ‘I thought I put it in reverse,’ ” Pelton said. “I kept asking him if he was OK. He was worried about his car. I said, ‘Don’t worry about the car.’ He thanked us a couple times and said, ‘Thank God you’re here.’ ”
Nick Ferraro can be reached at 651-228-2173.
jerr
