Thanks to a quick-thinking bridge construction crew, a nearby crane and a brave man in a harness, a woman’s life was saved after the boat she and her husband were in slipped over a dam and left her trapped in a raging boil.
At about 4 p.m. on June 30, Patricia Ralph-Neely and her husband, Alan, were scouting the Des Moines River for a place to watch July 4 fireworks with their grandchildren. They lost control of their boat near a pedestrian bridge under construction just above the Center Street Dam in Des Moines. The boat slipped past the bridge and over the dam, tossing both into the maelstrom. Both wore life jackets, but while Patricia’s stayed on, Alan’s did not, and he was drowned. Bobbing in the whitewater, Patricia was trapped in the boil and remained there, struggling against the washing-machine-like churn for 40 minutes.