Well, we were drilling on the St. Louis River in Cloquet, MN for a new bridge and we had our little Bombardier mounted drill on 2 barges.

Now that would be me on the left and Donny Pete on the right. Kid Brady was taking the picture. The bridge directly behind the drill was going to be replaced.

We had been on this job a couple of weeks and had just moved to a new location in the river where a new pier was to be put in. We had tied the barge off to an old pier nearby! Donny Pete or as he was known on the St. Croix, Super Swede the Viking, had looked at how we tied the barge up to the old pier and wanted to secure the chain a little better than the way we had done it?

The base of the old pier only had about 1’ of concrete circling the pier! And this base was about 3’ above the water! Dean and I watched as Super Swede stepped out onto that pier facing it and was hanging on with both arms!! Next he inspected the chain hookup to the pier. When he had confirmed that our job of securing the barge was satisfactory, he let go of the chain and was proceeding to stand up erect. To our disbelief he took a giant step off of the pier over the water into midair?

Instantly I thought to myself surely Super Swede had watched that movie Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail, and he was trying to recreate the scene where Indiana made the leap of faith across that gorge with the invisible bridge by stepping out into midair?!? At first Dean and I thought he might just pull this off, but then in another instant he was gone?

He went straight down and disappeared in that dark water leaving only his hard had slowly spinning in a circle? At this point, I started looking downstream from the barge, but saw nothing? I thought for sure he was gone, and that he would end up at the dam downstream.

Well, a good amount of time went by and I couldn’t hardly believe it? He reappeared right under his hardhat in the water only it was on backwards! Well, he was flailing around like crazy trying to claw his way back onto the barge. A nearby bridge worker and Dean reached down and grabbed his arms lifting him up, but after several attempts they could only get him half way out of the water and then he would get stuck???

Dean and the bridge worker figured it must be his heavy Carhartt clothing stopping him, but he soon informed them that his big belt buckle was snagging on something on the side of the barge and that his pants were coming off!!!!

Once the rescue was complete, Super waddled his way down the barge now completely frozen and not talking, leaving a water trail on the barge and down the wooden gang plank to our pickup on shore. He looked a lot like the Swamp Thing. He climbed in the back of the pickup with the heater on and we saw soggy wet clothes come flying out one piece at a time. We knew he was changing into dry duds from his suitcase!

Once dressed he reappeared from the back and went to the pickup cab, and just sat there? Deano and I figured he was done and we were going home so we secured the barge and drill for the weekend. We went to shore and took our winter clothing off and climbed into the cab with Super!

After what seemed like a half hour (but probably was 10 minutes) sitting in silence, just staring out the windshield I asked, “Super? Are we going home?”

To which he replied, “YES!”

Well we rode in silence for a while until we were out of Cloquet heading to Brainerd, eventually from the back seat Deano quietly asked Super this, “Peterson, why did you jump in?”

Super replied, “I didn’t jump in, when I stood up straight my life jacket slid down my back and pushed me out!”

Deano and I may have had smiles on our faces and now that the ice was broken, so to speak in the truck, I had to say to Super, “For a minute Donny I thought you were calling it quits and just jumped in?”

To this he replied “No!”

Well this was not spoken of again on our ride all the way home, but next Monday Dean and I made sure we told all the other crews that Donny thought he could walk on water, but he couldn’t!!!