Illinois boy pulled through drainage pipe thought he was ‘lost forever’

BURR RIDGE, Ill.—When Lauren Doppke saw her 10-year-old brother P.J. disappear into a rain-charged drainage pipe, she was terrified.

Lauren, 11, and P.J. had asked their mother if they could take their dog Pepper and go to a nearby park on the afternoon of Oct. 14. It had been raining steadily that Saturday and the creek and culvert through the park had overflowed its banks.

P.J. saw Pepper run in and out of the flowing water, but when he stepped in, he was knocked over.

“I tried to get out, but I fell again,” P.J. said.

“I could hear her screaming,” their mother, Erin Doppke, said of Lauren, adding that a mother knows the sound of her child’s voice and knows when the screams are real.

The current was so strong it carried P.J. along toward the 1,000-foot drainage pipe with an angled grate over the upper portion of its opening.

P.J. said he grabbed onto the grate, but he could not hold on and was dragged beneath it.

“That’s when I was most scared, when I was in the pipe,” P.J. said. “I thought I was lost forever.”

Neighbors across the street from the Doppke house were outside. Their backyard abuts Katherine Legge Memorial Park in Hinsdale and they saw what happened, Doppke said. The husband jumped the fence and ran to Lauren. His wife called 911 and told Doppke, “Your son just got swept away,” Doppke recalled. The woman thought P.J. had drowned.

“I saw all my neighbors coming out onto the street,” Doppke said. “A bunch of EMT vehicles and the police pulled up. It was chaos.”

Her neighbor had walked Lauren back home and Doppke’s older son, who had been in the house, came out with a coat for his sister, who Doppke said appeared to be in shock.

“We are standing there and, basically, P.J. walked up to us,” Doppke said.

P.J. said the water in the pipe went from waist high to up to his chin, but he was able to keep his head above the water until the pipe discharged.

It was pitch black, he said. But then he was able to see some light and realized he was coming to the end. The pipe empties into a creek east of the Doppkes’ neighborhood, between the Tri-State Tollway and the Woods Park swimming pool.

“He had the presence of mind to realize that there might be a grate at that end of the pipe, too,” his mother said. “He dove down into the water, so he could swim under the grate.” “My hair skimmed the bar,” P.J. said. Once discharged out of the pipe, he grabbed a branch and pulled himself out of the water. When he saw the Woods Pool, he knew where he was, so he walked the block to his home where he saw the fire trucks, police cars and ambulances.

“I was sort of speechless,” Lauren said when she saw her brother walk up. She was crying and hugging P.J., her mother said.

He had some scrapes and abrasions, but fortunately did not bump his head, Doppke said.

She had never really paid attention to the creek before, especially during a heavy rain, but now she realizes the danger.

Other people have learned that firsthand, too.

Stuart Heyes of Western Springs said Hinsdale officials have known of the danger since at least 1998. On May 7 of that year, he was in the park with his dog when a smaller dog got swept away by the current, which was stronger than normal due to recent rain.

Heyes went into the water, which was only knee deep, and lifted the dog out and onto the ground. But the current was so strong it knocked Heyes off his feet.

“I had no inkling of the power. It swept me right down to the grill,” said Heyes, who was 49 then. Heyes said he knew where the pipe emptied and did not want to make that trip.

“That is not going to be a pretty journey, I thought.”

With his chest against the grate, Heyes crawled and pulled himself over the grate and out of the water. Heyes told The Hinsdale Doings at the time that a child probably would not be able to withstand the current and he thought the grate should be extended to the ground.

The morning after P.J.’s ordeal, a black Labrador was swept through the same culvert and drainage pipe.

In 2013, a Bernese mountain dog, which weighed 115 pounds, survived being washed through the pipe and deposited into the creek.

P.J.s mother said she is very grateful her son survived.

“Having good lessons in swimming was very important, because he didn’t freak out when he was in the water,” Doppke said. “But they need to do something about the culvert to make it safer.”

Doppke’s husband, James, who was not home when P.J. was swept away, said he hopes the publicity about the incident will make other people aware of the current in the culvert and avoid the danger, and “that something will be done to make this and other areas like it safe.”

James Doppke said they have talked to members of the village staff and hope to learn what preventive measures they plan to put in place.

Hinsdale officials said they are investigating the site to determine the best way to prevent similar accidents and will make changes in the very near future.