Teacher dies in rafting accident
DeKALB – A teacher at St. Mary School in DeKalb died Thursday evening in a rafting accident on the Vermilion River in Oglesby, in LaSalle County.
Jennifer M. Wehling was 36. She taught first grade at St. Mary, where she had worked since 2001.
Illinois Conservation Police said it appeared Wehling got caught in the “boil” of a dam on the Vermilion when the raft she was in went over the dam. The other two people in the raft with Wehling have been charged with operating watercraft while under the influence of alcohol.
Wehling was remembered in her obituary as a selfless person who always took care of others before she took care of herself. She is survived by two daughters.
A funeral Mass will be held Wednesday,
July 1, at St. Mary Catholic Church in DeKalb. The family asked that, in lieu of flowers, memorials be made to St. Mary Catholic School or to Camp Maple Leaf.
Wehling was one of seven people who rented two rafts Thursday from local livery on the Vermilion River, Illinois Conservation Police said. She was in a raft with two other people, Timothy Ruse, 38, of Sarasota, Fla., and Janelle Veseling, 23, of St. Charles.
When Wehling’s raft approached the low-head dam near a cement plant, it failed to steer to the right and away from the dam.
The raft went over the dam and was caught in the “boil” of recirculating currents at the dam’s base. Ruse escaped, and Veseling was rescued by the Oglesby Fire Department.
Rescuers pulled Wehling from the “boil” and took her to Illinois Valley Community Hospital in Peru, where she later died.
Wehling, Ruse and Veseling all were wearing proper life vests at the time of the accident.
Ruse and Veseling were charged by Illinois Conservation Police with operation of a watercraft while under the influence of alcohol; the charge is a misdemeanor. They were taken by ambulance to Valley Community Hospital, where they were treated and released.
The St. Mary’s School Web site lists Veseling as the school’s third-grade teacher. Ruse was described in Wehling’s obituary as “the man that brought joy to her life.”
The rest of the group, in the other raft, navigated to the right of the dam and passed safely down the river, conservation police said.
The incident is similar to one that injured a mother and two children on June 13 in the same spot on the Vermilion.
In that incident, Mukund Riswadkar, his wife, Manjiri, and their 11- and 7-year-old daughters were rafting down the river at the same spot – just above the Buzzi Cement Plant low-head dam.
Mukund Riswadkar told police he had seen a sign instructing paddlers to move right as they approached the dam, but he was unable to navigate the raft to safe water in time. The Buzzi Cement Plant dam does not stretch the entire width of the river. There is an open channel on the right side that rafters are supposed to use for safe passage past the dam.
His wife and children were injured when the raft capsized in the “boil.” Illinois Department of Natural Resources spokesman Chris McCloud said it was his understanding that Manjiri Riswadkar and the children had recovered from their injuries. The family is from India; they were in the county visiting relatives.