SUV removed from Bollinger Co. creek 5 years after 2 boys lost their lives in flooding

BOLLINGER COUNTY, Mo. (KFVS) - Five years after being swept off a small bridge by floodwater, an SUV was removed from a creek in Bollinger County.

A six-man crew with Midwest Truck, Inc. out of Scott City helped remove it for free.

The SUV was more than half a mile away from the bridge. They said the only way to get to it was to go across someone’s private property.

They got permission from the landowner to clear a path to the SUV in the creek and started just after 8 a.m. on Friday, June 7. It took them about 6 hours to clear the way. By Friday afternoon, they got it out.

Ellen Underwood, the mother of two boys who died when the SUV was swept off of a bridge into the creek, praised the crew.

“...there’s no words really. This whole crew has been amazing. They’ve cried with us, they said they weren’t leaving until it was out, so, and that’s what they’ve done. They got it out,” she said.

The vehicle had been on the banks of Little Whitewater Creek since November 2019 when Jacob Luttrull tried to drive over the bridge at the creek while it was covered in several inches of flood water. The swift current pushed his SUV off the bridge and into the creek.

Luttrull and his younger son survived the accident, but his two sons with Ellen Underwood did not.

KFVS12 spoke with Underwood on Thursday when she warned others to beware of the dangers of floodwaters in hopes of preventing another tragedy.

She said she wanted to remember her boys in her own way, without seeing the gravel-filled vehicle.