A nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism

The River: Life and death on the waterways can be but moments apart, but I don’t regret my choices


The riverboat captain is a storyteller, and Captain Don Sanders will be sharing the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story.

By Captain Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune

“I’m going to walk right down to that river and keep on going.”

The river has been a personal inviting source of pleasure and escapes from the hubbub ashore.

Or so, someone overheard a woman telling her companion. Was she earnest, or was she seeking a sympathetic response from her ostensibly unfazed associate? Although the river has been a personal inviting source of pleasure and escapes from the hubbub ashore, its dark surfaces and murky depths also beckon others with more baleful impulses.

River folks realize that the watery world they’ve chosen to inhabit can become the source of their demise in an ill-fated instant. Most, though, myself included, remain unfazed by the extinction potential in the alien environment beneath their feet. It’s not that the possibility for calamity is callously ignored; rather, the allure of the river outweighs the risks. Life goes unless acted on in unexpected circumstances. 

Historically, floods, droughts, ice, storms, heat, cold, and other hazardous circumstances have all played roles in the human relationship to the fluvial environment. Still, it was the introduction of the steamboat in 1811 that increased the statistics in the Grim Reaper’s favor when it came to the dangers of engaging in a relationship with the waterways of the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

The allure of the river outweighs the risks. Capt. Alex Schuchter on a flooded river.

From the 1816 explosion aboard Captain Henry Miller Shreve’s palatial Steamer WASHINGTON at Marietta, Ohio that killed 13, to the end of 1853 when the federal government established the Steamboat Inspection Service, a forerunner of the U.S. Coast Guard, an estimated 7,000 people died in steamboat disasters.

The worst maritime catastrophe in U. S. history remains the explosion of the sidewheeler SULTANA loaded with repatriated Union POWs recently released from the infamous Confederate prison camps of Cabaha, near Selma, Alabama, and Andersonville in southwest Georgia. Around 2 AM, April 27, 1865, the overloaded SULTANA was straining upbound on the Lower Mississippi River, several miles above Memphis near a chain of small islands known as “Paddy’s Hens and Chickens,” when the vessel’s faulty boilers suddenly let loose. Although the exact number of victims remains unknown, the U. S. Customs Service set the official tally of the lost at 1,547 souls. By comparison, the sinking of the ocean liner TITANIC, 47 years later in international waters off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, claimed 1,517 crew members and passengers.

Growing up in a city bordered on two sides by rivers, the Ohio to the north and the Licking to the east, and with a policeman for a father, I heard numerous stories involving the unfortunate circumstances of various victims of foul play when they and the river interacted with disastrous results.

It was the introduction of the steamboat in 1811 that increased the statistics in the Grim Reaper’s favor when it came to the dangers of engaging in a relationship with the waterways of the Mississippi River.

Human bodies, called “floaters,” periodically washed up on the shores of the town, and the police were normally the first on the scene to recover and investigate the grisly remains. My father, Lt. Col. Jess Sanders, Jr., usually the officer in charge of the gaggle of “coppers,” as Dad liked to call himself and his men, found themselves surrounding the bloated remains of a male resting along the rocks upstream above the Roebling Suspension Bridge. While they were waiting for what they referred to as the “meat wagon” to transport the bloated, blackened body to the coroner, one of the officers, apparently with nothing better to do to keep his mind occupied, pushed his foot down hard on the swollen, extended midsection of the dead man.

With a terrifying shriek, the policeman leaped back as an engorged eel, feeding on the innards of the deceased, shot out of the mouth of the decaying, foul cadaver.

The worst maritime catastrophe in U. S. history remains the explosion of the sidewheeler SULTANA loaded with repatriated Union POWs recently released from the infamous Confederate prison camps.

As the snake-like fish flopped onto the riverbank, it writhed, squirmed, and forced its way back into the water, and angrily swam away. Even today, the tale still gives me the “willies” as I imagine the grisly scene as it was the day when my father excitedly recounted the event shortly after it happened on the sandy shore above the Suspension Bridge.

Roebling’s Suspension Bridge was the scene of another bizarre and perplexing tragedy involving unfortunate victims and the Ohio River. On a frigid, bitter, winter night, as a man and his wife were driving across the bridge into Kentucky from Cincinnati on the northern side of the river, they argued angrily about something. Near the middle of the historic structure, the husband shouted,

My father, Lt. Col. Jess Sanders, Jr., usually the officer in charge of the gaggle of “coppers,” as Dad liked to call himself and his men. L-R: Abe Lindsay, Jess Sanders, Jr., Elmer Schmidt, and little Dickie Sanders.

“If you say another word, I’ll stop and jump off the bridge!”

When the wife continued, the man stopped the automobile, leaped out, and climbed down into the steel structure below the roadway. The terrified wife pleaded for her husband to climb back and get into the car. But the man, who was by then hanging below the metalwork above the angry waters far below, screamed that he could not pull himself up from where he was dangling. He pleaded for her to run for help at the police station inside the City Building half a bridge length and a short distance away.

Inside the aging Richardsonian Romanesque Revival Courthouse and city offices, my father and several other “coppers” were suddenly shaken by the screams of the hysterical wife pleading for their assistance to save her husband holding on for dear life beneath the roadway of the nearby bridge. Dad and all those who could be spared from the government building hurried to where the pleas from the man beneath the steel structure already sounded weak as he begged for mercy. Soon, a rescue team from the city fire department joined the policemen who failed, thus far, in their efforts to assist the terrified and exhausted fellow.

Inside the aging Richardsonian Romanesque Revival Courthouse and city offices, my father and several other “coppers” were suddenly shaken by the screams of the hysterical wife.

As the rescuers anxiously strived to aid the man hanging above the freezing waters, the repentant couple cried and pleaded to the Creator and His Heavenly Host to spare the husband’s life. As my father and those assembled on the historic overpass spanning the broad river swollen by recent storms stood helpless by, two terrifying screams rent the winter air. One, that of the man, suddenly ceased as his body slammed into the river beneath the span, while that of his mate screeched continuously in terrifying disbelief. Her terror-stricken shriek was the only sound heard in the encroaching gloom of the frigid night.

In the 60-some years since I first recognized the riverway as my life pathway, I have personally saved at least seven fortunate souls from the jaws of death on the river. In turn, my life was spared that many times by my own guardian angels.

Life and death on the watery byways can be but moments apart. In the overall scheme of living and dying, I’ve taken my chances on the river and have yet to regret those choices.

Roebling’s Suspension Bridge was the scene of another bizarre and perplexing tragedy involving unfortunate victims and the Ohio River.

Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian, and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune and will share his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.  


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3 Comments

  1. Connie Bays says:

    You’ve definitely kept me on the edge of my seat with this story! It’s too bad that couple didn’t have a happier ending. I was rooting for him!

  2. Ronald Sutton says:

    Most of Us who have been in the industry are well acquainted with the Risks, including the risk of a completely and unexpected peril. I have posted that the Rivers and Deep Seas are Not Our Friends; they will Kill us given a chance.

  3. Heidi English says:

    Captain Don once again you have made me riveted to your story. A page turner with anticipation.
    What a great story.
    You’re a legend. So many talents!
    Thank you.

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