It is not uncommon to see the body of a drowned person when you work on a riverboat. But death is what it is, and you always feel sad from these experiences. We had no way of knowing at the time of viewing that this body we were seeing was not a drowned person.
We were shifting barges from shore to the dock, one mile below Smith Highway Bridge, mile 277.9 Illinois Waterway. I was the captain on this vessel and was off watch and sleeping when I was awakened by a deckhand, and he said, the pilot needs you in the pilothouse.