The Drownings in MA

[abaici]

I heard about it this morning. My heart was breaking as I watched the two surviving boys talk about the deaths of their friends. Needless to say, when my babies (8th graders) left me today I told them to be careful (it was raining really hard today and people in LA do not know how to drive in the rain).


Mass. Drown Victims' Families in Disbelief



By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Writer

LAWRENCE, Mass. - Two days after his 11-year old brother William and three friends drowned falling through thin ice on the Merrimack River, Eufemio Rodriguez Jr. was still hoping it wasn't true.



"I just keep hoping this is just a dream, I wake up and he's right there doing what he does best, laughing and playing," 17-year-old Eufemio said Monday.


But the reality showed in the red eyes of his father, Eufemio Rodriguez Sr., and the memorials on the banks of the Merrimack, which was clear of ice Monday afternoon despite freezing temperatures and steady snow.


"Everybody in this family has a great pain in their hearts," Rodriguez Sr. said through a translator. "Nothing that happens in the future is going to heal this, just our family keeping united."


Earlier Monday, Rodriguez Sr. met and thanked Jacques Fournier, the man who tried to rescue the boys from the river with a rope that proved too short.


"Thank you for trying to save my son," Rodriguez Sr. said as he embraced him.


Fournier said he'll keep new rope and a life jacket at his house and practice tossing it in the water, just in case.


"I'm going to do better if it happens again," he said.


The other three who died were Christopher Casado, 7, Victor Baez, 9, and Mackendy Constant, 8. Three other boys survived.


The survivors said William Rodriguez was the first to venture onto the ice Saturday after he and his friends left the nearby Boys and Girls Club of Greater Lawrence. The ice was only about 1 to 2 inches thick and couldn't support him. The other boys who tried to help him also fell in.


Those who died were trapped under the ice for at least 10 minutes, Police Chief John J. Romero said. They were about 25 feet from shore in water up to 8 feet deep, he said.


One of the survivors, 9-year-old Francis Spraus, sobbed when asked on NBC's "Today" show about the terrifying moments when his friends fell through the ice.


"I thank God that God gave me another life," he said through tears.


Ten-year-old Jaycob Morales also described the horrifying moment when William Rodriguez slipped away from him in the ice-covered river.


"I was scared and cold, but I was hoping that God would get me out of this mess," he said on the "Today" show.


Mayor Michael Sullivan announced a memorial fund to help the victims' families, beginning with burial expenses. He said city flags would fly at half-staff.


Grief counselors were sent to city schools, and School Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy said "adults and children are having just a very, very bad time."


"It's the darkest day in a long time in the history of our school system," Laboy said, adding that many of the city's children are immigrants from Caribbean who are not used to dealing with winter hazards.

Officials said they would redouble efforts to educate children about the dangers of venturing onto ice.

The four victims were all born in Lawrence, but their parents were immigrants from Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Romero said the boys' deaths were still being investigated.

"I don't think these boys realized the danger they were in," Romero said. "There's no one to blame here."