Missing Cedar Rapids man was having problems regulating his diabetes, mother says

CEDAR RAPIDS — With no news Monday on the disappearance of Erik Spaw, his mother offered a possible explanation of what might have happened and why his assigned waterworks fleet pickup was found submerged in the Cedar River on Saturday.

Karen Spaw, 88, of Cedar Rapids, told The Gazette on Monday her 54-year-old son has Type 1 diabetes and may have passed out from low blood sugar and driven into the river.

Her son, she said, had been having a hard time regulating his blood sugar and insulin intake recently and that his blood sugar had dropped dangerously low several times.

Crews continued searching the river for Spaw on Monday, using boats and a K-9 officer. They reported having no updates on day 3 of the search.

Spaw, whose mother said he has worked for the city for more than 20 years, worked a Friday evening shift at the Northwest Water Treatment Plant, 7807 Ellis Rd. NW.

Early Saturday, water division staff reported he had not returned to the J Avenue Water Treatment Plant, where his personal car was parked. The most direct route between the two plants is along Ellis Road NW, which parallels the river in spots.

The unoccupied water department fleet pickup assigned to Spaw was found in the river near Ellis Road NW on Saturday.

Karen Spaw said police came to her house Saturday evening around 5:30.

“When they came to the door I thought, what did I do?” she said Monday. “I thought I was in trouble for something. I couldn’t think what I did wrong, but then they came in and asked me if I was here alone, and I said yes.

“And when they said, ‘Well, maybe you’d better sit down,’ I thought this can’t be good.”

She said her son once worked with his parents at their sewer and drain cleaning company before taking a job with the city sewer service and moving to the city water department.

“He was a very good worker,” she said.

Her son, she said, is an active person. He played football in high school and used to race stock cars with his two brothers and race his Jet Ski on the Cedar River.

He recently stopped racing, she said, because diabetes caused his feet to go numb during the races.

“He did a lot of things, but the older you get, the more the diabetes affects your body,” Karen Spaw said.

His disappearance, she said, is “very, very sad because if he had just done things a little differently with his diabetes, it probably wouldn’t have happened that way. Diabetes is an awful disease. It’s hard.

“I’m always hoping for some miracle, but at this point, it’s been so long now that if he was having one of those spells, even if he made it to shore, he would have to have help. He’d have to get some sugar.”

She said her son’s two brothers were racing stock cars Saturday and didn’t learn their brother was missing until later in the evening. His sister lives in North Carolina and has been considering coming home, but is waiting to see if the family gets any answers, Karen Spaw said.

“It was an awful shock, of course,” she said. “He was my baby. He was the youngest.”

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com