The Kid In The River

Jerry tells an interesting and odd story from the banks of Indiana's St. Joe River, at Mishawaka. I’m sure the emergency people see everything at one time or another, but even they must have been taken aback. Delusion can be a very strong force! People live halfway in the real world and halfway in a fantasy world anyway. Kids, more than most, can be affected.:

My brother and I heard a loud commotion while walking by the river. At first we thought it was some kids goofing around, but then a boy (around 12, I'd say) said that a little kid had fallen into the river and asked us to call 9-1-1. We did, but it turned out that they had already received a call. Shortly thereafter, emergency personnel began to arrive (firemen), and we saw that the commotion was being caused by a screaming woman who was running back and forth along a stone wall next to the river. She seemed to be indicating that her son had fallen into the river. Some other people were with her, but they didn't seem to be acting with the urgency one might expect under the circumstances. The woman seemed to be directing her shouts at one man in particular, at one pointed yelling, "We're through!" Firemen with ropes were walking along the paths on both banks, peering intently into the river and they even launched a rescue boat. We didn't really know what to do, so we continued walking, constantly looking down into the river, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. We again encountered the kid who asked to call 9-1-1 (he was looping back after crossing a footbridge). We asked him for more details, and he now said that the kid who had fallen into the river was his ten-year-old brother. Odd that before he had merely said that a "little kid" had fallen into the river; now, it was his brother. The whole thing began to ring false; if this had really happened, wouldn't the boy have said, "Please help, my brother fell into the river!"? Then, within 20 minutes, the firemen were gone. That evening, I looked for something about this incident on the news -- nothing. In the paper the next morning -- nothing. It never happened. Very strange. One possibility is that the woman has some sort of mental problem and that the firemen were so informed by the people who were with her. But who was that boy?