<TITLE>22. Par 85-88</TITLE>L-85 So I started back. And the water just a twisting; I couldn't hardly make it. And I finally got way up this way and come down, and caught a hold of the--of the--the outside post and tied my boat, and went in. The baby she was talking about is the baby she had in her arms, about two and a half years old.
And then when I heard the building go out from under me... And I run out real quick, and I fell in the water, probably twenty-five feet. And I fell in the water, and just got a hold of the boat like this to pull the... keep it from pulling my boat down too. And undone the... loosed the--the knot in the rope, fell into the boat.
Then came freezing like that. I couldn't get the outboard motor started on it. Out into the river, I whirled right out into the main part of the current, me pulling and pulling. And it wouldn't start. Them great waves, almost as high as this building here, licking up like that, and that little bitty boat like that, and me out there...?... Ohio Falls, just about a mile and a half below me there, going right to them, which meant death at any minute... And there, brother, I had to think it over, whether it was trash or not. I was going out to see.

L-86 There, pulling on that rope, and it wouldn't start, and I'd pull again, and it wouldn't start. Sick wife and baby laying out there, just lost my daddy and everything, I knelt down in the boat, and I said, "Oh God, have mercy. Have mercy. I don't want to die out here in this river like this. And I want to raise them children. Please, dear heavenly Father, if You'll just let it start, dear God."
And that boat rocking from side to side like that, me trying to pull then. I thought, "Oh, it--it can't be but just a little bit farther to the falls. I knowed that was the end of all of it then, 'cause them big waves like that, and they're coming back this way, take me right into the whirlpool there. And it's seventy or eighty feet deep right straight down through there. In normal times if anybody ever goes in there, that's all of it. And hang on those big rock ledges down through there. And there seldom ever find their body.

L-87 And so I just praying out there, and I said, "God, I know I've done wrong. I know I oughtn't to have listened to what I did. Please, dear heavenly Father." Just trying to start. And just in a few moments, it give a couple of little sputters and started. "Oh, Lord."
Back in. I landed, come back and give it all I could, and heard... cutting this way, and praying my gasoline hold out. Finally landed way down towards New Albany there, the other corner. And--and got in and went back and got my boat--or got my car.
And when I got up there and found out about the mother, and everything was all right. I slipped out to the ho--or the government hospital to find out how my wife was. I was going to talk to her about it. And I went out there, and they was just laying in little old army cots.
And when I got there, it was all covered over with water. Where were they at? Then I started screaming to the top... And I got excited then.

L-88 Major Weekly, a friend of mine there at the government, he walked up to me. He said, "Reverend Branham?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "I don't think your wife is gone." Said, "I think they got everybody out of there." Said, "I think they went to Charlestown, a city about twelve, fourteen miles above here." Said, "I think they went out in a cattle car." Her with pneumonia and it sleeting and blowing like that. Two sick babies and them with pneumonia, one of them just eight months old. I thought, "Oh mercy, they was on a cattle car."
Then I jumped in my truck and run out there towards--to get the road to go to Charlestown. There's about six miles of water where the Lancassange Creek had come through like this to get back. I run down and got my speed boat, and I'd tried my best to get through them waves. I'd hit like this and go plumb back around like that, and I tried to duck the waves.


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