In the way of miracles, have we got a whopper for you.
The Tri-City Herald reports the remarkable story of what happened to three ‘tooners at 5 a.m. last Sunday while on the Snake River.
After a late night of fishing about a half mile east of Ice Harbor Dam, Robert McCollum, 64, his grandson, 11, and a foreign exchange student,16, were too tired to keep their eyes open any longer. They fell asleep aboard their 21-footer and were not awakened when the anchor didn’t hold and the pontoon quietly meandered into the path of the river’s shipping lanes.
Quick interjection—this story has a happy ending. Do not despair.
Moments before it happened, the crew of three woke up in a completely different place. Barreling out of the darkness right in front of them was a river barge. It struck the unlit pontoon and flung all three overboard, the water pulling them underneath the barge as it powerfully churned its way forward. The barge crew wasn’t even aware of the accident until they had been alerted by radio.
Upon surfacing, the two boys were able to swim to shore. Deputies Jimmy Greco and Richard Schram were the responders, rescuing McCollum from treading water in their patrol boat.
The 64-year-old was treated and released from a local hospital. The chief operations deputy of the Walla Walla County Sheriff’s Office, John King, says, “Everybody’s safe. They were very lucky.”
Thankfully, no one on pontoon or barge was seriously hurt and deputies were even able to bring in the smashed pontoon and a lot of the resulting flotsam from the Snake River.
“The boat itself was pretty mangled,” King says—a testament to the miracle of the threesome’s good fortune.
To read the full article, click here.
Photo courtesy of the Walla Walla Sheriff Office and the Tri-City Herald.
