Hours had gone by, muddy water was raging and a 69-year-old man was still clinging to a tree near the Big River.
Rapidly rising water swept him off the bridge on Mammoth Road and into the river on Tuesday. Somehow he found himself in a forested area not normally covered by water and scrambled up a tree. He was there, 6 feet up, when rescuers in a boat found him nearly six hours later.
How did they even know to look for him?
Well, his daughter-in-law was the first one to need help. Like his car, her car stalled in the high water at the base of the bridge. Someone saw her and called 911.
De Soto Rural Fire Protection District crews arrived and walked her through a low spot to safety. Quickly those crews learned that wouldn't be their only rescue for the day. The daughter-in-law told them her father-in-law's car was abandoned on the bridge and she could hear him calling for help in the distance.
That call for help was around 8 in the morning. Crews mobilized and soon a drone pilot from the Hillsboro Fire Protection District had an eye in the sky.
An hour later, there he was; the man washed away by flood waters was clinging to a tree in a patch of flooded woods.
Water rescue teams from Cedar Hill, Hillsboro and the De Soto Rural Fire Protection District launched boats into floodwater on Mammoth Road.
It took rescuers 30 to 40 minutes to find their way through flooded forest and swift waters to the man in the tree.
"He was shocked," Bob Tucker with the Cedar Hill Fire Protection District told 5 On Your Side, "He didn't know that we were coming to get him. He hadn't heard his daughter in law call to him. He hadn't heard anything."
Being sure not to startle him, Tucker and his crew guided the man down the tree and into their boat.
The man, a "69-year-old gentleman and he is turning 70 here in the next week or so, didn't think he was going to make it," Tucker said.
Thirty minutes later, the man was back on dry land.
John Scullin with the De Soto Rural Fire Protection District updated 5 On Your Side around 12:30 p.m.: "He's awake and he's doing OK. The ambulance has transported him to a local facility to be checked out for hypothermia because he's been in the water since probably 5:30 a.m."