Remembering Turrell's rescue

With a throaty growl, the big diesel engine of the road grader sprang to life on that early Friday morning of May 20, 1977, putting into motion a series of events that culminated with a pickup pitching headlong into the cold waters of Beauty Bay.

Jim and Rosa Stowe, owners of the local lumber mill, were on their way down the grade alongside the bay just after 9 a.m. in the family’s white 1965 GMC pickup. Luckily, a 25-year-old Idaho Transportation Department employee named Tim Turrell also started moving when the road grader did.

Turrell has often speculated that when the grader started moving, Jim caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and stomped on the gas. The V8 engine in the little truck lurched forward, sending the couple down a 50-foot embankment into about 15 feet of water in Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Jim told his daughter-in-law, Edwina, that he had also just purchased a manual-transmission Subaru and got the pedals confused with the automatic-transmission pickup. So, when he tried to push on the clutch and brake, there was no clutch, and one foot instead hit the accelerator, causing the pickup to suddenly lunge over the bank.

Ironically, crews were in the process of installing guardrail. They were widening Idaho State Highway 97 (then known as Highway 95 Alternate) over the 6 percent grade. Workers were adding a foot and a half width to each lane, along with 5-foot shoulders or clearance zone, and replacing some culverts for better drainage. Of course, the guardrail was to come later in the project.

Turrell, who had been setting barricades but typically would have been at another part of the project running machinery, tore off his hat, glasses and vest, and had one boot off when Jim popped up from the depths.

“He couldn’t swim a lick, and that water was still very cold,” Turrell recalls. In fact, neither Jim nor Rosa could swim. The days were still springlike — the temperatures were only just starting to hit the low 60s for the daytime high, so it was well below that at mid-morning.

Tim put Jim over the only part of the car he could, the rear bumper, and set to fishing out Rosa, who had pushed Jim out of the car but was still stuck in the cab.

A nearby fisherman came over with his boat, and the Stowes were loaded onto the craft along with another department employee, who was an EMT. They were then rushed to the local hospital, treated, and released.

Now 65, Turrell lives about a mile from ITD’s North Idaho (District 1) offices in Coeur d’Alene, retired from ITD in 2007 after more than three decades of service. He is moving to Post Falls next year when his wife, Peggy, retires from the Coeur d’Alene School District.

He started part time with ITD in April 1970, working summers at the department between stints at North Idaho College and Idaho State University, where he played baseball as a 6-foot-4-inch, right-handed pitcher with questionable control.

The Stowes, married 40 years at the time of the incident, gave Turrell a nice watch, which he still has, and he was recognized for his efforts by then-District Engineer Merle Harding, Department Director Darrell Manning, and Board Chairman Dean Tisdale.

Reed Hollinshead is a public information specialist employed by the Idaho Transportation Department.