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The Viroqua, Wis., native, who attends the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was spending a night in downtown La Crosse with a couple of friends when they got separated, according to La Crosse police.
He showed up at an area hospital more than five hours later, wet and muddy, police said. Details still were sketchy, and an investigation is continuing.
But news of the event has spread rapidly through the community — which saw seven young men drown in area rivers over a seven-year span — via an e-mail supposedly written by a member of the student’s family.
Investigators now are trying to determine how the 21-year-old student, who had an estimated blood-alcohol concentration of 0.163 percent, ended up in the frigid Mississippi, La Crosse Police Chief Ed Kondracki said.
Little is known about what happened between 1:45 a.m., when the man last remembers being in a La Crosse bar, and 7 a.m., when he walked into Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center sodden and caked with mud, wearing no coat and no shoes.
The man told hospital staff he had fallen in the river but didn’t know where or how it happened, police reported.
While he had his wallet and keys, he had lost his hat, coat, shoes, cell phone and $20 in cash, according to police reports.
The man told police he and his buddies took a cab that evening from a home in the 400 block of South 20th Street to the downtown bars.
The man said he recalls being in a bar about 1:45 a.m., but remembers very little after that until he found himself in the river, fighting a strong current that was rapidly carrying him downstream. After an estimated 15 minutes, he was able to grab onto a tall concrete structure and pull himself to shore, where he likely passed out, he told police.
Later, the man awoke on a rocky bank near Gundersen Lutheran, with the sound of traffic over his left shoulder, he told police.
Police said although the man’s blood-alcohol concentration was 0.043 about 9 a.m. Sunday, they estimated it would have been 0.163 about 1:30 a.m.
Kondracki said he was “relieved and pleased” to know the man survived, but disappointed to hear another intoxicated young man had fallen into the river.
Along with the seven intoxicated young men who perished in area river drownings over a seven-year period, there also have been a number of cases in which men broke through the river ice but managed to get out, Kondracki said.
This case highlights the need for continued work by the Alcohol Task Force, which was organized to seek ways to reduce excessive drinking in the area, Kondracki said.
“The Alcohol Task Force initially came out with ordinance recommendations, but we now have a good number of recommendations that go beyond ordinances,” he said. “They go to address education, (alcohol and other drug abuse) issues and public safety in general.”
Dan Springer can be reached at (608) 791-8269 or dspringer@lacrossetribune.com.
