11 survive houseboat going over Mississippi River dam near Winona

A holiday excursion on the Mississippi River turned into an afternoon of terror as 11 people aboard a houseboat were dragged over a dam and tossed into the rushing water.

"I kept thinking, please don't die," said Martin Neumann, one of two riverboat employees guiding a group of nine on the Memorial Day excursion up and then back down the Mississippi.

The houseboat first had a mechanical failure well before turning around north of the dam and heading south on its return to La Crosse, Chief Deputy Ron Ganrude of the Winona County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday.

"They got it running again and were heading back to La Crosse," Ganrude said. "As they were idling and waiting for another boat to go through the lock, they lost power and were adrift. As they are trying to get it started, they're calling people for help."

The Sheriff's Office identified the family on the outing as: Leroy and Sandra Sellnow, of Watertown, Wis.; Garrick and Sandra Fischer, of Watertown, and their daughter, Kalin, 12; Steven and Giselle Kaiser, of Grafton, Wis.; and James and Arlene Krause, of Watertown.

The boat was staffed by its captain, Thomas Mattie, of La Crosse, and Neumann, also of La Crosse.

The real drama began when the 58-foot-long houseboat's engine died as it waited for safe passage through the lock near La Crescent, Minn. Suddenly, the force of the river took over, pushing and pulling the rental houseboat away from the lock and to the dam, "where the current is strong and the water is rushing hard," Neumann said a day after he and 10 others were rescued from the river.

"We're within 200 feet of it, then 150 feet of it and we're still not getting it started," Neumann said. Neumann's colleague jumped into a small boat being towed, in hopes of using it to steer the houseboat from harm's way.

It didn't work.

About 30 feet from the dam, Neumann brought the engine to life and shoved it into reverse. But the river refused to relent. "We weren't going to get out of there," Neumann said. And people screamed, "Oh my God. Oh my God."

Ten feet from the dam's edge, Neumann "cranked the frickin' wheel," bashing the houseboat into a concrete wall, wedging it for a moment. The other employee jumped onto the wall to tie the boat down. But it failed and Neumann rushed to get the group, which included a couple and their daughter along with the girl's grandparents, into the small boat in hopes he could maneuver it through the dam's rushing waters.

With the river running high, the dam's gates were open and the Mississippi flowed free. If the gates had been down, a boat or person would likely be sucked into a vortex, said Shannon Bauer, spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers St. Paul District. "You would be turned over and over," she said.

He couldn't figure out which way was up. He wondered how many of them would survive. "You have a lot to think about in a short amount of time," he said.

Within 30 seconds, Neumann saw light and surfaced. He saw others coming up for air and some of them reached the overturned small boat and hung on. The girl's father stood on the roof of the houseboat as it sank, washed through the dam and was chewed up.

"The dad rode the boat down," Neumann said.

His daughter, not knowing where her father was, became hysterical. So Neumann took off the "I love you dad" bracelet he wore from his daughter and gave it to the girl. "I told her your dad would want you to wear this. We're going to get him."

Nearby, John Rieple was making his last shuttle run of the day from Minnesota for the fishing float business that he and his brother operate on the Wisconsin side when he noticed "a lot of debris coming from the dam — coolers and lawn chairs."

Within minutes, Rieple and rescuers from the Army Corps of Engineers had all 11 people out of the water.

"They were all crying, hugging and kissing," Rieple said. "It was very emotional. Very heart-wrenching."

"Very few people were on the river," Rieple said, noting it was fortunate he was near when the group went over the dam.

"Had I not been there, I don't know" how those with the lifeboat would have fared, Rieple said. "The older man clinging to the lifeboat was in shock."

Rieple said the teen's mother later said to him: "I thought I was being so smart, grabbing my purse and keys" as the houseboat neared its demise. "I can't believe I didn't put my life jacket on."

pwalsh@startribune.com • 612-673-4482