Quote:
Originally Posted by Garick
You'd be surprised how often drunk people decide to walk along the rocks in a sort of semi-bouldering maneuver. I was thinking more of wandering off the steamboat mooring area, though.
Well, if people are trying to get over the boulders for 'some drunk reason' or are traveling along the river looking for an easier place to fall in then all bets are off. I had always assumed drunk people were just taking wrong turns out of bars because they were on the opposite side of 3rd street than most of the bars. Like they walked the wrong way down Vine St after leaving Del's because they thought they were at Who's On Third. Or they walk the wrong way down Pearl St after leaving the Starlight because they thought they were at the Library. All those vectors lead you straight into boulder fields along the river (and chain 'fences'). The last guy to end up dead when i left there had last been seen at John's, which is on that side of 3rd.
/thinly veiled excuse to rattle off names of La Crosse college bars
In looking into these specific cases I'm noticing that a lot of the dead guys are visiting students from other universities. As La Crosse has always been a essentially a tourist destination for getting absolutely blitzed, it seems pretty likely that they could be lost and wandering in the dark and could find their way in almost anywhere.
ETA: In 2012 we had a visiting University of Wisconsin student fall in the Mississippi in La Crosse (in January). He was able to pull himself out and survive.
Quote:
According to police reports, Fortney said he left the downtown bars about 1:45 a.m. when he became separated from his friends Jay Larson and Jay Hoffland. He remembers very little after that until he found himself in the river, fighting a strong current that was rapidly carrying him downstream. After an estimated 15 minutes, he was able to grab onto a tall concrete structure and pull himself out. Later, he awoke on a rocky bank near Gundersen Lutheran, with the sound of traffic over his left shoulder. He told police he had likely passed out. He still had his wallet, but he had lost his hat, coat, shoes, cell phone and $20 in cash. The man’s blood-alcohol concentration was 0.043 about 9 a.m. Sunday, which means it would have been 0.163 about 1:30 a.m.
https://footprintsattheriversedge.bl...crosse-wi.html
0.163 is drunk but not nearly drunk enough to be in 'blacked out not forming memories' territory for a 21 year old University of Wisconsin student imo. And he was pulling himself out of the river and passing out on the river bank several hours later when he was no longer even legally drunk. Hmmmm...
Last edited by JayTeeMe; 01-23-2019 at 11:32 AM.