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Former all-state lineman Bobby O'Quinn drowned trying to save two girls...

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msudawg05

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Oct 12, 2009
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Clarion-Ledger article<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(44, 44, 44); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; ">
</span></div><div>http://www.clarionledger.com/articl...ying-save-girls?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Home<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(44, 44, 44); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; ">The body of 19-year old Bobby O’Quinn was recovered in Franklin County’s Lake Okhissa a day and a half after he drowned trying to save two girls, officials said. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(44, 44, 44); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; ">O’Quinn saved one of the girls who had ventured too far out in the swimming area, Sheriff James Newman said. She is being treated at a Jackson hospital for a lung infection, county officials said. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(44, 44, 44); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; ">The body of 7-year-old Audrionna Lofton, of Jackson, was recovered Saturday. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(44, 44, 44); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; ">O'Quinn, 19, a former all-state lineman for Franklin County High School, was a freshman at Copiah-Lincoln Community College, where he played defensive line.</span></div>
 
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msudawg05

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Oct 12, 2009
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Clarion-Ledger article<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(44, 44, 44); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; ">
</span></div><div>http://www.clarionledger.com/articl...ying-save-girls?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Home<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(44, 44, 44); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; ">The body of 19-year old Bobby O’Quinn was recovered in Franklin County’s Lake Okhissa a day and a half after he drowned trying to save two girls, officials said. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(44, 44, 44); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; ">O’Quinn saved one of the girls who had ventured too far out in the swimming area, Sheriff James Newman said. She is being treated at a Jackson hospital for a lung infection, county officials said. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(44, 44, 44); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; ">The body of 7-year-old Audrionna Lofton, of Jackson, was recovered Saturday. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(44, 44, 44); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; ">O'Quinn, 19, a former all-state lineman for Franklin County High School, was a freshman at Copiah-Lincoln Community College, where he played defensive line.</span></div>
 
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jackstefano

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Dec 28, 2007
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I've actually been in a situation where someone would die if I didn't risk my own life to save him, and it wasn't even a consideration. It involved a guy who passed me doing 80. He ten hit a truck and his car caught on fire. I wasn't going to risk my life for that fool, but even in a more innocent situation I'm not sure I could value someone else's life over my own.
 
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jackstefano

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Dec 28, 2007
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but unless I'm related to the person, then no. And I have to pose the question: why would you?

Now for my family, I would do it without question.
 
thatsbaseball

thatsbaseball

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May 29, 2007
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I might have made the same decision. But why in the world would you come on a sports message board and post that ? Even though this board is anonymous I don`t get it .
 
AlCoDog

AlCoDog

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This really isn't the kind of discussion I prefer to get in on this board, but I will answer your question, "why would you?" I wouldn't want to live the guilt and regret of watching someone die if I though there was a chance I could do something to prevent it, especially a child. It would haunt me for the rest of my life.
 
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msudeltadawg1971

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Dec 3, 2007
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if your child, wife, neice, etc. is drowning, laying on the tracks and a slow moving train is coming and I just stand there and let them drown, get hit by the train, you wouldn't say **** to me like why didn't you help?
 
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HammerOfTheDogs

All-Conference
Jun 20, 2001
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Minority kids in a lake? Don't have a 5-star sibling you can recruit? Well, for them it's too-bad-so-sad.
 
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jackstefano

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Dec 28, 2007
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If you'd put your life on the line for someone you don't know, you're more of a man than I am. I support the firemen and policemen financially for just that reason. Now I'll get a cat out of a tree like a mother @%%+%%.</p>
 
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patdog

Heisman
May 28, 2007
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In your case, no way I'd even consider risking my life to save the guy. In this case, maybe. I'll never know unless I'm in that situation. In any case, Bobby O'Quin died a hero. It's just a very sad story. As for the guys giving you hell about your post, like Karl said, hopefully none of us will ever really know what we'd do. Because none of us do right now.
 
coach66

coach66

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Mar 5, 2009
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success before giving up their own life. In this case since I am a strong swimmer soI probably would made the attempt and I feel like I would have been successful but I don't know all the circumstances. On the other hand if a house is fully engulfed in flames and there appears to be little chance of saving said person then I think it might be foolish to have two dead folks instead of one. I guess this is what they call pragmatic.
 
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SpongeBob58

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Sep 20, 2009
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According to the Enterprise Journal article, Bobby went after one girl and Mike Hunt went after the other and saved her. I guess everything happens for a reason, because if Mike doesn't quit football, he's probably in Starkville instead of Meadville that day.



By Ernest Herndon, Enterprise-Journal www.enterprise-journal.com | 0 comments

BUDE — Authorities on Monday found the body of a second victim who drowned Saturday afternoon at Okhissa Lake in Franklin County.

Franklin County Sheriff James Newman said divers found the body of 18-year-old Bobby O’Quinn III, 18, of Bude, this morning around 10:30.

O’Quinn drowned trying to save the life of 7-year-old Audrionna Shante Lofton of Jackson. O’Quinn, a star athlete and student at Copiah-Lincoln Community College, could not swim but went to the aid of the child, who drowned. Divers found Lofton’s body around 6:30 p.m. Saturday, but they were unable to locate O’Quinn’s body Saturday or Sunday.

O’Quinn was the son of Bobby O’Quinn and Valarine O’Quinn of Bude. Lofton was the daughter of Carl and Aundria Lofton of Jackson.

Lofton was in the roped-off swimming area on the west side of the dam around 3:30 p.m. when she went into deep water, Newman said.

Lofton and her twin sister got into trouble in the northwest corner of the swimming area, and two men, O’Quinn and Michael Hunt of Franklin County, went to rescue them, Newman said.

Hunt rescued the sister, but O’Quinn, a non-swimmer, and Audrionna went under and did not come up.

“My understanding is these little girls went out there and got over their head a little bit,” Newman said. “It’s tragic. The guy went out there and couldn’t swim himself.”

The sister, whose name was not available, was taken to Franklin County Memorial Hospital and transferred to a hospital in Jackson.

“She inhaled water. She was a near-drowning also,” said McComb Fire Chief B.J. Nettles, who helped oversee the search and rescue.

O’Quinn was a 2010 graduate of Franklin County High School and was a star athlete. Officials agreed his self-sacrificing attempt to save the girl was heroic.

“The one who did not survive (O’Quinn) is not a swimmer. The one who did survive (Hunt) is a swimmer. The girl who is a victim is a twin. Both got in trouble,” Homochitto National Forest ranger Bruce Prud’homme said. “One twin they couldn’t get to in time. The man who died, the second victim, died trying to rescue her.”

After the drownings were reported, officials closed off all access to the north end of the lake, which has boat ramps north and south.

Officials’ boats also were posted in the lake to keep recreational boats away from the site, in part to keep them from clouding the clear water.

Rescuers late Sunday switched their methods to dragging the bottom of the lake.

“It’s hard to drag in that lake because of all the stumps and all,” said Franklin County emergency manager Mark Thornton.

Another problem is the steep underwater dropoff just beyond the swimming area.

“When they recovered the little girl the other day she was right at the edge of that dropoff, because when the diver went to reach for her she automatically started easing off the edge of that drop,” Thornton said. “He caught her before she went down. He was right at that shelf line. It drops off to about 40 feet right here.”

Officials brought in a cadaver dog from Forrest County on Monday to help with the search.

Nettles said visibility is 2 feet in shallow water, less in deeper. The surface temperature is 69 degrees, dropping off to the mid-40s at 20 feet.

Participating in the efforts were Franklin and Pike County search and rescue teams; Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks officers; and Franklin sheriff officials. American Red Cross officials were on hand to provide a canteen service and to offer mental health counseling to family members.

Search efforts were tightly regimented, said Prud’homme.

“From the witnesses and from (wildlife conservation officers) Randy Cooley and Chris LeDoux, they had an idea where the victims disappeared,” Prud’homme said. “They had a visual fix on it. ... The boats that Fish & Game and the rescue units (use) have a pretty good sonar, and they do a sweep with that sonar on the bottom and try to find something on the bottom that might be a body.”

At that point searchers drop a marker with a line and buoy, and divers go down, searching in a gradually increasing radius.

Searchers use a grid method to cover the area.

In shallower water, one man walks the bank tethered to a diver. The walker leads the diver to the edge of a grid.

“They do a really thorough search,” Prud’homme said,

The Okhissa swimming area opened in 2009 with a beach and roped-off space but no lifeguard. Signs warn visitors to swim at their own risk and notes that no lifeguard is on duty.

These were the first drownings to occur in the 1,100-acre national forest lake, which opened in 2007.

“It’s a tragic accident all the way around,” said Franklin County Coroner Percy Peeler.
 
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KurtRambis4

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Aug 30, 2006
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really pointing out the fact that it was the worst post ever on this board because of his thoughts on whether he would do the same or not, but rather that his first thought on the subject was this. Instead of praising the kid for trying to save these people, his posted pretty much that it was ridiculous for him to try.
 
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MadDawg.sixpack

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May 22, 2006
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Cause when I'm standing at the gates of heaven, that might just override all the stupid ******** I've done my entire life and persuade St. Peter to open the gate.

lock it up.
 
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