Jim Perotti, head of maintenance for Holiday Shores Lake, clings to a depth gauge after becoming trapped by the suction force of a drain in Illinois on March 19.

Perotti was stuck in the frigid water for more than an hour before he was rescued and airlifted to a hospital in serious condition.

The torrential downpours that battered the Midwest also took two lives in southern Illinois, when floodwaters swept a truck off a rural road, the Associated Press reported.

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