Difficult days ahead for wife, young sons of missing railroad worker


After more than 24 hours of waiting, hoping and praying, Suzie Scholl said she realized she had to talk to her sons.

She had to tell 6-year-old Ryan and 3-year-old Brendan that their father, Jeff, was missing and probably wasn’t going to be coming home.

“I told them last night,” Suzie Scholl said Thursday morning. “This morning they wanted to give their daddy a kiss, so they kissed their hands and sent the kisses to heaven.”

Jeff Scholl, 38, was one of three Nebraska Central Railroad employees who fell into the raging Elkhorn River on Tuesday when a bridge they were inspecting collapsed with little warning. One of the workers was able to climb out of the river himself and the other was rescued by Norfolk rescue personnel. Neither has been identified.


In the meantime, Suzie Scholl kept hoping.

“We hoped that he was trapped somewhere and waiting to be rescued,” the Norfolkan said.

But a visit Wednesday night from Shane Weidner, Norfolk fire chief, provided some telling and sad information.

“Given the nature of the collapse, it’s possible the bridge could have collapsed on him and he was caught underneath. Shane said the chances of survival were very slim,” Scholl said.

“So now we’re still waiting, but it’s a different kind of waiting. We’re waiting for his body to be found,” she added.

Once flood waters recede to a safe level, an extensive water and land search will be conducted to look for Jeff Scholl, Weidner said. When that occurs, volunteers would be helpful in thoroughly searching as wide an area as possible.

Scholl said her husband loved working for the railroad. “It was his dream job,” she said.

The Petersburg native “loved trains from the time he was little. When he was older, he would chase trains whenever he could,” his wife said.

At Nebraska Central, where he had been employed for more than five years, his job responsibilities involving running the remote-controlled engine and providing service to businesses that made use of the rail.

Suzie Scholl said she’s been supported by many family members and friends since the accident occurred Tuesday. She hasn’t been in contact with the other railroad employees who also were on the bridge when it collapsed but were able to emerge from the river.

“I would like to visit with them at some point, but I know they’re dealing with a lot right now, too,” she said.

Scholl said she has some frustrations with the way she found out about the bridge collapse.

Instead of the railroad letting her know of the situation, she found out about the bridge collapse indirectly while at work at Divots. She then tried calling her husband’s cell phone and got no response. That’s when she called the railroad to inquire about her husband — only to be informed that he was missing.

“They had known about it for way over an hour and yet I had to call them to find out,” she said.

Scholl said she knows that the days ahead will be difficult ones for her and her sons.

“They’ll have a lot of questions. They already do,” she said.

One of the boys decided to sleep Wednesday night “on daddy’s pillow,” she said.

“Now they’ve decided that they want to keep sleeping on daddy’s pillow, so that’s what we’re going to do,” she said.

Nebraska Central Railroad attorney Bob Bach says the body of 38-year-old Jeff Scholl was found sometime Thursday night or early Friday morning. Bach says Scholl's body was found under the wreckage of the bridge, and that crews were trying to retrieve the body Friday.