MODE Salutes: Steve Ketterer, River Rescue Chief

by Luke Rettig 

    On March 3, 2007 a 300 pound mental health patient named Richard Lowrie walks onto the frozen Susquehanna River with the intention of killing himself. He breaks through the ice shortly before 9 a.m.

     Steve Ketterer arrives five minutes later. He stretches a wet suit over his shirt, slacks and tie-leaving his hands ungloved for dexterity. Ketterer then grabs a rope, drops to his belly and crawls towards the screaming Lowrie.

     Lowrie is flailing and clawing at the ice. He's wearing street clothes in 29-degree water and he's losing consciousness. Ketterer wraps Lowrie with a rope, but Lowrie panics and yanks Ketterer into the bitterly cold river. For the next 18 minutes the two men freeze side-by-side.

     Ketterer knows they can't get out and the police officers holding their ropes are standing so close that Ketterer worries they too will fall in. Lowrie continues to flail. He keeps saying don't let me die. Ketterer says he won't but he's becoming less sure.

     The ropes holding them afloat are also pinning them against the ice, limiting their air supply. Appendages numb, body temperatures drop, and Ketterer's dry suit begins to leak. Finally a boat arrives.

     Ketterer goes underwater to leverage the enormous Lowrie onto the boat. Rescuers then pull Ketterer onto the ice where he passes out. Fearing cardiac arrest, they begin CPR, pounding on Ketterer's chest and breaking several ribs before he wakes up near shore. Both men are immediately taken to Harrisburg Hospital.

     In 1972, Hurricane Agnes sidled up the east coast and flooded Harrisburg. Ketterer was 18, a recent graduate of Bishop McDevitt High School. He walked into the firehouse on Derry Street and said, "Here I am."

     They asked him if he knew anything about boats. Ketterer didn't know one end of a boat from another. Here's a life jacket, they said. Go rescue people. Ketterer hopped on a boat and off they went. He did a lot of rescuing that weekend, starting with a group of nursing students at the Riverfront Inn.

     Now, 35 years later, Ketterer is chief of Harrisburg River Rescue, still rescuing people-pulling people from dams and, yes, also retrieving dead bodies from the river. Every day he deals with lifechanging injuries and often fatalities, sacrificing time with family and friends to command inherently dangerous operations.

     It's sad these days, says Ketterer, because volunteers are in decline and there's so much demand. Training has become more intense, more time intensive, and far more expensive. Municipalities, faced with tighter budgets, have placed an increasing burden on paid professionals. By contrast, volunteers must raise more money for the privilege of volunteering.

     Words like action and adventure, purpose, meaning, sense of duty: these are the characteristics that compel volunteers to join emergency service. Few professions, paid or otherwise, offer this unparalleled camaraderie combined with the potential satisfaction of saving a life. Thanks to Hurricane Agnes, Ketterer has trained and taught river rescue for 35 years. Richard Lowrie is just one of many who are thankful.

The Harrisburg River Rescue team

     Lowrie and Ketterer's story made national news. Ketterer received phone calls and emails from across the country, and a letter from President Bush. The Weather Channel, says Ketterer, has acquired television rights to the story. Mayor Reed presented him with one of the City's highest forms of recognition. He had to get used to being known as a hero.

     It was touching, he says, but the hero stuff felt weird. Ketterer is 53, perhaps too old, say some of his friends and family, to be risking his life, especially when he has a son to raise. Ketterer admits he has slowed in recent years. He used to say yes to everything, because he wanted to help. Now, against his nature, he has learned to say no.

     Ketterer's latest assignment is a life-long dream. In April, 2007, Governor Rendell appointed Ketterer to the Fish & Boat Commission, where he serves as Commissioner. As the Chief of Harrisburg River Rescue, Ketterer personally saved lives by the handful. Now he hopes to save thousands more through policy, education, and preventive measures.

     In the immediate aftermath of saving Lowrie, Ketterer thought of little else. It bothered him, especially at night. Should he have waited for backup? What if he had lost Lowrie? What if he had lost his own life? Ketterer considered all the things he could have done differently. But now, he says, the impact is fading, slowly. And he realizes that if it would mean saving another life, he would do it all again.

     There are 35 active members in Harrisburg River Rescue. They are led by their Chief, Steve Ketterer, and MODE salutes him.