Man walking his dog thought he spotted debris in the brush — then a second look made him call 911
On a storm-soaked, November morning in 2024, a quiet walk near Brentwood turned into a situation of life and loss. 54-year-old Rob Hanselman stepped into the woods near his home, unaware that the flash flood would soon pull him into one of the most frightening phases of his life. “I don’t remember water being high. I don’t remember the water rushing up. I don’t remember falling in the river,” he shared. The next clear memory would come much later, in a hospital room. What happened in between had to be reconstructed by doctors and first responders, per KSDK News reports on November 25, 2025.
Rob had walked into thick brush, “weed-whacking” in shorts and flip-flops, losing one of them along the way. The rising floodwaters swept him nearly four miles downstream, carrying him into the River Des Peres. For up to 48 hours, he remained trapped in the brush along the bank, injured, freezing, and unconscious. His body temperature had dropped to 70 degrees. “It’s supposed to be 98,” he mentioned. His lungs were filled with contaminated water when Paramedics revealed something shocking. “Thirty more minutes and you would’ve been dead.” Two days after he went missing, a man named Austin Perkins was walking his dogs. He noticed something across the bank, but at first, thought it was debris caught in the brush. Fortunately, he looked again.
That second look changed everything. He called 911, and within minutes, fire crews arrived. The brush was packed in so tightly that rescuers had to cut their way through to reach Rob. He was lifted out cold, injured, and barely alive. He regained consciousness about eight hours later in the hospital, with medical staff and his wife by his side. His short-term memory was fractured. “My brain wasn’t right for 34 days,” he said.
It took him six long weeks in the ICU and three months in rehab to recover. Nearly six months passed before he felt he had truly recovered. “My short-term memory is gone. I won’t remember what I ate for lunch, but I can remember things from 20 years ago. When it rains, I get PTSD,” he explained. Disasters like floods often leave behind more than physical wounds. According to the Global Burden of Disease survey mentioned in the study titled "Mental Health Disorders Due to Disaster Exposure: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis" on PubMedCentral, the occurrence of mental health disorders exceeds 10% globally, and disasters heighten the risk of severe post-traumatic effects, something Rob lives with each time the sky darkens.
For nearly a year, Rob had just one wish: to meet his savior. When the moment finally came, he walked back to the same riverbank. “Are you the one that saw me?” Rob asked. “I am,” Austin replied. The hug that followed lasted long enough to say everything words couldn’t. Filled with gratitude for his rescuer and his second chance at life, Rob stated, “I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for you.” Rob held onto one clear belief. He felt he shouldn’t have survived, yet he did. And he knew it was because a stranger walking his dogs had chosen to look again instead of turning away.