The Eagle-Tribune, by Staff

By O'Ryan Johnson and Chris Markuns

Seven children went through the ice covering the Merrimack River into 15 to 20 feet of water yesterday afternoon. Here, Lawrence Firefighter William Cunningham wraps his arms around one of the victims and holds on while other firefighters pull him to shore. (Lisa Poole/Staff photo)

LAWRENCE -- Four boys age 7 to 11 drowned when a group of seven boys plunged through thin ice yesterday afternoon.

It was the worst local Merrimack River tragedy in nearly a century.

As the seven city boys finished their snack run from the Lawrence Boys & Girls Club to Hanson's Market yesterday afternoon, a sudden urge to slide around prompted 11-year-old William Rodriguez to dash for the serene expanse of river ice.

It was a playful impulse that ended with his plunge through the ice, setting off an ill-fated rescue attempt that deteriorated into a mass of desperate children clinging to each other in 35-degree water.

The catastrophe left four boys dead, their families crushed and rescue workers shaken following an afternoon of fighting a river of broken ice, the steep mud-covered bank and driving rain.

Dead are William Rodriguez, 11, of 292 Howard St.; Christopher Casado, 7, of 18 Jasper Court; Mackendy Constant, 8, of 7 Clinton St.; and Victor Baez, 9, 46 Bernard Ave.

Police said the four dead boys were trapped under the ice at least 10 minutes.

The ice was one to two inches thick where they ventured off the river bank. Four inches is considered the minimum to support more than one person, and river ice may not be safe even at that thickness because of currents and other factors.

Surviving the incident were Francis Spraus, 9, 14 School St.; Christopher's brother Ivan Casado, 9, 18 Jasper Court; Jaycob Morales, 10, 4 Winslow Place.

Ivan and Francis were released from the hospital last night, and recalled the story from its quiet start -- Ivan and Christopher meeting Francis at his home for a 10 a.m. walk to the Boys & Girls Club.

They were too late to sign up for the free throw shooting contest that was scheduled for to follow the club's weekly basketball shoot around, so they teamed up with four friends, playing bumper board and watching the basketball movie, "Like Mike."

They went next door to Hanson's for snack food, and Rodriguez had an idea when they came out.

"Willie said he wanted to go down to the river, to slide on the Ice," Ivan said.

"But we said no," said Francis. "So we tried to stop him."

Willie bolted toward the river, according to Francis, and the rest of the group ran to catch up. William cleared a roughly 15-foot-high dirt berm, and was on the water when the other six boys caught up.

"He was in the middle of the river," Francis said, Ivan finishing the sentence: "Then the ice broke and he fell down in the water."

There was no cry for help.

"He couldn't cause every time he opened his mouth water got in," Francis said.

Mackendy Constant, perhaps the smallest of the boys, ran on the ice to Willie, according to Francis. He took off his jacket and, holding on to one arm, he tossed the other to Willie.

"Willie's a lot bigger than him," said Francis. "So when he pulled on the jacket it pulled him in too."

The ice broke around the two boys, prompting the remaining on the bank locked arms and walk onto the ice to rescue them. The ice collapsed under their weight.

"Then we all fell in," said Francis. "I thought I was going to drown."

"I thought I was going to drown too," Ivan said.

Ivan was closest to the river bank when the ice broke. Soaked from the waist down, he jumped ashore.

"I told him to run and call the police," Francis said.

Francis held on to Jaycob Morales and Ivan's brother Christopher Casado.

"I was kicking my legs and holding Jaycob up ... on the ice ledge," Francis said.

Ivan said he ran to the first door he saw and roused Jacques Fournier, 63, 10 Caulkins Court.

"I saw this little boy walking towards me," Fournier said. "Not running. He looked exhausted."

Fournier, a retired city maintenance worker, said he told his wife to call police, while he grabbed a rope.

While Fournier and Ivan ran back to the river, Francis was barely holding on.

"My legs started to get stiff, and I had a freezing headache," he said. "I was hanging on to Christopher, but he started to slip under. I tried holding on to his hand, but it was like he let go."

It was then Fournier and Ivan got back to the bank, Francis said. Fournier made a desperate attempt to save the boys.

"I threw the rope out once and it landed too far away, so I threw it out again, and again it was too far for them to reach," he said, recalling his pleas for them "to hang on, hang on."

By the time Fournier made his third attempt the first rescue workers had arrived, he said. Rescuers first pulled Francis and Jacob from the water, and Francis, Jaycob, and Ivan were taken to Lawrence General Hospital.

Lawrence Police Chief John J. Romero said Officers Ryan Guthrie, Carlos Vieira and Alan Demers arrived on the scene first, went out onto the ice and pulled the two boys who were floating on the surface to safety.

By then Lawrence and Andover firefighters equipped with ice rescue suits had arrived and after a search of the area where the boys went in, found the four remaining boys under the ice, 25 feet from shore in 15-20 feet of water.

Because of the steep embankment, rescuers were forced to use ladders to bring the children up off the river to the waiting ambulances. Members of the state police, Lawrence Police and Merrimack Valley dive teams entered the 38-degree water and conducted an area search to be sure no one was left behind.

In the aftermath of the incident, Ivan and Christopher's mother, and Francis' mother Alicia Spraus are wondering how this could happen when the boys were supposed to be at the cub.

"She wants to know how the kids were let go without the parents coming to pick them up," said Alicia through her son through Juan Nunez, 17.

But Boys & Girls Club director Markus Fischer, who did not know any of the boys by name, said the club has an open door policy and it is not uncommon for some of the 3,100 members to walk home.

"That is very common -- a good portion of our kids access the club by walking home to and from the club," Fischer said. "I think we need to find out more of the facts at this point. There are so many unanswered questions; we need to sort out what happened. Obviously, our prayers are with those families and with those kids."

The boys' venture onto the ice was witnessed by Ronald Rand, 15, and friend Damon Mustapha, 13, who were walking along the high banking separating the river from the end of Caulkins court. Rand said he warned the boys but was rebuffed, and when he passed by again moments later, they were gone.

"They were out there sliding around," Rand said, "and one of them said, 'I am superman -- I'll jump through the ice if I fall in."

© 2002 Eagle-Tribune Publishing

By Meredith Warren and Meir Rinde

Staff Writers

A star basketball and baseball player with the trophies to prove it, 11-year-old William Rodriguez never seemed to run out of energy, his father said yesterday.

Nine-year-old Victor Baez was always "happy," often stopping by a neighbor's house to play with her baby niece.

Victor and William were two of the four boys killed yesterday, falling through the ice into the Merrimack River. William had gone out onto the ice first. Victor, 7-year-old Christopher Casado, and 8-year-old Mackendy Constant died trying to save William.

William spent yesterday afternoon doing what he loved best -- competing in a Saturday basketball shootout at the Lawrence Boys and Girls Club with his friends and his 13-year-old brother, Jason.

A popular jokester and good student at Parthum Elementary School, William was the youngest of seven children -- "my baby," said his father, Eufemio Rodriguez.

"I really loved him," said Christopher Rodriguez, the 12-year-old brother of William. "He was a good basketball player. He liked to fool around and make jokes. He liked to run around and jump around."

Christopher watched his father sob as he talked to relatives on the phone.

Following the basketball shootout, Jason looked for his brother, but couldn't find him. He went home alone in a taxi.

It was a police car that next pulled up to the alley leading to the Rodriguez' triple-decker at 292 Howard St. in North Lawrence. William and seven of his friends had fallen through ice on the Merrimack River near Water Street, less than 100 yards from the Boys and Girls Club, the family was told.

"The police said he was OK," said Christopher.

William was later pronounced dead at Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, the first of the four friends to die.

Christopher and his father were the first to arrive home from the hospital last night. Pots of food from dinner remained on the stove and dinner plates rested in the sink. The lights on a silver Christmas tree glistened in their small living room.

William was a good student, bringing home report cards full of As and Bs, his father said.

But his first love was basketball and the Boys and Girls Club was like William's second home, his family said.

"I always went to see my baby play," Eufemio Rodriguez said.

Victor Baez and other neighborhood children would sometimes walk on the iced-over Merrimack River despite the danger, his neighbor Yirkina Santana said.

"It was raining and dark," she said. "I don't know why they went. They used to do it a lot."

Victor lived with his mother, stepfather and younger sister at 46 Bernard St. in the Hancock Courts housing project, Yirkina said.

Yirkina, 17, and her sister Marciel, 11, live in the same building as Victor and he had visited them the night before he died.

"He was playing with our baby niece, and he was happy -- like he always was," Marciel said. "He would come by all the time to watch TV and say hello."

Police came by at about 4:15 p.m. and Victor's mother, Thema Gomez, phoned the Santanas a few minutes later, crying and asking them to watch her daughter while she was out, Yirkina said.

Gomez is originally from the Dominican Republic and sometimes worked as a substitute teacher at the Hennessey School down the street, they said.

© 2002 Eagle-Tribune Publishing

By Gretchen Putnam

Staff Writer

LAWRENCE -- Four young boys in full cardiac arrest at the scene.

Three arrive at Lawrence General Hospital with hands still pumping their chests in an effort to restart their hearts. Two have body temperatures below 80 degrees.

Ambulances bring in another three boys, all suffering from hypothermia but breathing.

Six boys, five minutes. That's what faced Dr. Michelle R. Harris and her emergency room staff yesterday.

In the end, two of the boys would go home, one would stay overnight, and three would later die at Boston hospitals.

Another boy would die at Holy Family Hospital in Methuen.

"I think having three people in such a situation all at once, I have never seen ..." said Harris hesitating. "I don't even know how to put it ... I never seen a mass casualty trauma like this."

With the emergency room in a "trauma stat" mode, Harris said, teams of at least four and five doctors and nurses got to work on the three most critical patients. Their priority -- get the boys' temperatures up, says Harris.

Harris described the process -- resuscitation continued while tubes in the boys' chests and abdomen pumped in warm saline solution in an effort to warm the boys from the inside. The boys' ventilators blew warm air into them. This went on for an hour to two hours, Harris said.

Little boys -- all the victims were little boys, a fact that drove the teams more, Harris says.

"I think it's a whole adrenaline -- one, because they are kids, two, we take care of adults like this everyday," she said. "You don't see kids like this everyday."

But the sadness of working so long on little kids without heartbeats is something the teams must forget in the ER.

"You completely remove yourself emotionally from it when it happens," Harris said.

"You don't experience the emotional part of it until afterward."

"Afterward" is when emergency room workers start feeling the shock and sadness, Harris said. The inevitable self-second-guessing comes next, she said -- "Did I do everything I could?"

As for Harris, still winding down from the events, "I am OK. There's a lot of support."

© 2002 Eagle-Tribune Publishing

By Jason B. Grosky

Staff Writer

LAWRENCE -- With his wife rubbing his arm and assuring him, "You did everything you could," Firefighter William J. Cunningham lowered his head as his eyes welled up. He had just heard the words he feared the most -- "all four are dead."

Less than six hours earlier, Cunningham was neck-high in frigid water when he pulled out the first two of four young children who fell through the ice and were submerged in the Merrimack River yesterday. Three others were pulled to safety.

"The worst tragedies are the ones that involve young children, multiple deaths or people who are related to you," said Cunningham, 53, of Methuen. "In this one, you got two of the three."

Using a 6-foot rod with a hook, Cunningham crawled across the ice, reaching in to hoist up what he thought was one victim -- a mid-teen, he assumed. But the hook caught something lighter -- the leg of a much younger boy, caught just behind the knee.

"Initially, I was told there was only one," he said. "When I found the first child I pulled him up and went to shore. By the time I got back to shore, I was told there were actually four."

He got back on his hands and knees and crawled out 25 feet to the hole in the ice. Wearing a yellow, nylon suit with a thermal lining, he slid back into the water. Within several minutes he hooked the second boy, also behind the knee cap, and pulled him to the surface.

Tired after having spent about 15 minutes in the 36 degree to 38 degree water, Cunningham was ordered out of the water.

"The adrenaline was pumping," he said back at the Central Fire Station, wearing black sweat pants and a navy blue Fire Department golf shirt. "You have to keep the adrenaline under wraps so you can keep control of yourself. If you get too tired and too cold, hypothermia sets in and you start making irrational decisions."

As he climbed out, Firefighter Edward Burke continued searching below the surface, and pulled out the third boy. Cunningham remembered just hours earlier, when he saw Burke cuddling up with his two young children at the Christmas party thrown by the relief association.

Cunningham and his wife stood on the main floor of the Central Fire Station talking last night, a few hours after the incident. Other firefighters were upstairs eating Chinese food, but not Cunningham -- "I lost my appetite."

On the table before him was a sheet of white paper which listed the Chinese food orders. Next to Cunningham's name, a firefighter penciled in the words "hero man."

"You do your job, whether it's a fire, an accident or a water rescue. You do the best you can and do what you're supposed to do," said Cunningham.

As he reflected on yesterday's incident, Cunningham said he knew all too well what drew the seven boys onto the Merrimack River.

In his childhood, Cunningham said he and his buddies regularly played down at the Spicket River in Methuen -- venturing across the ice in the winter and playing on the "Tarzan swing" in the summer. He was 11 when his best friend's little brother followed the boys down to the river, went into the water and drowned.

"We didn't even know he went in," Cunningham said.

Cunningham, a member of the Merrimack Valley Dive Team, figures he's participated in more than 100 rescues over 20 years.

In 1988, he was named Firefighter of the Year after he dove into the North Canal to free a Haverhill woman whose car was submerged. Cunningham knocked out the windshield and got the woman out, but she died later that day.

A member of the Greater Lowell Stress Debriefing Team, Cunningham is an expert when it comes to helping firefighters, police officers or paramedics deal with tragedy. He spent two weeks in New York City last year counseling FDNY firefighters following Sept. 11. He was in Worcester in 1999 helping firefighters who lost six of their own in an abandoned warehouse fire.

Cunningham figures he and several other people involved in yesterday's ice rescue will meet over the next few days to talk openly about what happened, working to get past the sorrow which accompanies such a tragedy.

As he spoke, his head again tilted down, chin against his chest. Just a half-hour earlier, his head was cropped up higher, knowing at the time that only one boy was dead. He spoke with optimism then, praying the three other boys would pull through.

"This is so gratifying this time because we were able to make a rescue instead of recovering bodies," he said. "To actually recover four kids within an hour is pretty amazing. ... The sad thing is, this didn't have to happen."

Having worked 24 hours straight, Cunningham figures he will have a good cry over the tragedy after getting off work at 7 this morning.

"Firefighters are very macho; the same with cops," he said. "Things aren't supposed to bother you, but it does -- big time."

© 2002 Eagle-Tribune Publishing

The Merrimack River has claimed many lives but seldom as many in one blow as yesterday.

The drowning of four boys is believed to be the worst local calamity on the river since the Lawrence Bathhouse Tragedy, which occurred 89 years ago in almost exactly the same spot -- on the north bank of the river just above the Great Stone Dam.

On the hot afternoon of June 30, 1913, 11 boys ranging in age from 8 to 15 drowned when a wharf leading from the river bank to a city-owned bathhouse collapsed. More than 20 other boys plunged into the river but were rescued.

It was the first week of school vacation, and the bathhouse had just opened.

The victims were Secundo Allegbro, 10; William Bolster, 10; Joseph Belanger, 8; John Cote, 8; Ronaldo Gaudette, 10; Joseph Hennessey, 15; Roland Jones, 9; Joseph McCann, 15; Flower Pinta, 11; William Thornton., 10; and Michael Woitena, 14.

Flags flew at half-staff throughout Lawrence, and the city paid the families of each of the victims $100 for funeral expenses. Not long after, the bathhouses were closed.

Deputy Lawrence Fire Chief Joseph Marquis said he did not know of a worse tragedy on the river in modern times than yesterday's.

"This is one of the worst water incidents we've ever been to. You expect one or two victims, you don't expect seven," Marquis said.

© 2002 Eagle-Tribune Publishing

By Gretchen Putnam

Staff Writer

LAWRENCE -- Eleven-year-old William Rodriguez was a child with special needs, incapable of understanding the dangers of the river ice.

"I am Superman," he responded to witnesses who warned him off the Merrimack. He said if the wafer-thin ice caved in, he would simply fly away.

Within minutes, the ice silently gave out, dropping William into the 38-degree water, triggering the worst river tragedy in this gritty city's history since 11 youths drowned in 1913.

William's real-life supermen, however, were the six neighborhood pals who knew the boy's limitations, and in the noblest of acts, rushed onto the ice to save him, said his mother, Maria Nunez, through funeral director Louis Farrah.

All would go into the river, forming a body chain, to try to rescue William. Three would survive the futile effort. Three others would die trying -- Mackendy Constant, 8; Christopher Casado, 7; and Victor Baez, 9.

"Now they're all together in heaven," said William's sister, Suley P. Rodriguez, 16. "I feel so badly his friends passed away. This shouldn't have happened."

The dead boys' faces tell the story -- too young, too happy, too tragic. Families talk of their shock and the boys they will bury Thursday. And a city used to tough knocks cries out for the victims and their families.

Survivors tell the true horror of what happened at 3 p.m. Saturday, as seven friends left the Boys & Girls Club on Water Street to head to Hanson's Market to pick up some snacks.

Confused with the feelings of guilt and pride in their heroism, survivors Jaycob Morales, 10, and Francis Spraus, 9, speak of the terror that befell them on that rainy and cold afternoon. Nine-year-old survivor Ivan Casado couldn't bring himself to talk -- it was his brother Christopher who died.

Here are their stories, based on interviews with family members and the survivors.

William, 11, dead

The last family member to see William alive was his brother, 12-year-old Jason. He was with William and friends at the Boys & Girls Club for a free throw shooting contest.

About 2:30 p.m., William asked Jason for money so he could go with friends to Hanson's Market for snacks after finishing up at the club. When the tourney ended, Jason said he went outside and "looked all over" for William, but could not find him.

He called a taxi and went home alone.

"When I got home, my mom said, 'Where's William?' " Jason said. "I didn't know where he was at."

A short time later, a cruiser pulled up to the home and police told the family what happened. They rushed to Holy Family Hospital in Methuen.

Family members say William's father, Eufemio, rushed in and was brought to the child's side.

"He was crying, 'Oh my God, my baby. I love you. I love you.' He thought (William) was still alive," his sister Suley said. "That's when they came up to him and said, 'I'm sorry for your loss.' That's when we noticed (William was dead)."

The family later learned the three other boys died.

"They were all good kids," Jason said.

William's family huddled throughout yesterday at the Rodriguez home at 292 Howard St., remembering the youngest of seven siblings aged 11 to 20.

Suley, who is pregnant and expecting a boy, said she will name the baby "William," saying of her baby brother, "Even though he left, he'll still be with me."

As she wept softly, talking about her brother and the three other boys, Suley said her heart also goes out to the three survivors.

"The kids who survived have to live with this for the rest of their lives," said 14-year-old Genudys Gonzalez, a close family friend who considered William a little brother.

"They're little. They shouldn't have gone through this," Suley said.

Jaycob, 10, survivor

Jaycob Morales watched four of his friends drown. He tried to save them, even when he started choking on the icy water. He prayed, "God please help us survive this terrible thing."

Jaycob, 10, did survive and said he was the first on the ice trying to save William, but immediately went into the water. He sat on a couch at his Lawrence home yesterday, speaking of his friends as if they needed to learn life lessons that he would still get a chance to teach them.

"Willie doesn't like listening. He was the oldest so he thought he would show the little kids what being brave is all about," said Jaycob. "I learned don't be a follower just be a leader. Don't follow him. Don't go. You're going to drown, you're going to die."

Jaycob earnestly replayed the scene exactly as he remembers it happening. The boys were hanging out at the Boys and Girls Club when Ivan Casado suggested they go slide on the ice. They didn't want to go but William told them to be tough.

"Let's go. Let's go. Stop being chickens," Jaycob remembers him saying. "You want to go? Let's go just for fun."

As the boys fell through the ice, Jaycob said he floated because he was wearing a bubble jacket, and he tried to help the others.

"I had my chin on the ice, I could hardly breathe," he said to a reporter this morning. "I saw my friends die, and said how could this be."

Jaycob remembers rescue workers handing him a blanket. Then he fell asleep.

"I had to help them. They were like family to me," he said.

Ysabel Morales, his mother, received the nightmare call. Her son fell through the ice on the Merrimack River. She rushed to Lawrence General Hospital. She was stunned by all the police and fire workers and the crying mothers.

"Isabel, my baby. My baby is dead," one mother yelled.

"I don't know if my baby is dead," she said. "I want to see my baby."

The hospital staff brought her to Jaycob's room, where he appeared dazed but alive. His mother believes his rescue was a miracle, and so does her son.

"For some reason God wants me to live," said Jaycob.

Mackendy, 8, dead

Perhaps the smallest of the group, Mackendy was the next one on the ice, now trying to save William and Jaycob, survivors Francis and Ivan said.

Taking off his jacket, he threw it to William who was struggling in the water, unable to speak. Holding one arm of the jacket, Mackendy tried to pull William out of the water, but instead, William pulled him in.

"He was one-sixth part of my heart," said 14-year-old Walson Constant, the eldest of four Constant brothers, including Mark Constant, 12, who is deaf, and Kevin Constant, 2.

Walson, who attended the Guilmette School with his brother, said he was at the Boys & Girls Club playing basketball on Saturday when he noticed his brother and friends had left the club and not returned.

Later, Walson and his family learned from a Lawrence police officer that his brother was near death in the hospital.

His parents explained to him, Mackendy tried to wake up, but couldn't. Mackendy was dead.

The Constant family left Haiti eight years ago for "political reasons" and a better life in Lawrence, said Mackendy's uncle, Canes Monta, 35.

A couple of months ago, Mackendy's family moved to 7 Clinton St., a tidy, white home at the end of a short, dead-end road off Cross Street and off Broadway.

The sound of people crying could be heard coming from the home as carloads of friends and relatives came and went yesterday.

Monta said Mackendy's father, Jean Constant, got a call about the accident from his eldest son Saturday. He left his job at Hunt Nursing Home in Danvers and went directly to Lawrence General where doctors desperately worked to resuscitate Mackendy. He later died at Children's Hospital in Boston.

"I've been with them since last night," said Monta. "They spent all night crying."

Lawrence Pop Warner Athletic Director Dennis Torres, 40, stood watch over the home with Mackendy's brother Walson. Walson played as a member of the Hurricanes B team that won the Eastern Mass. championship in November.

Torres said he wanted to help Monta arrange the boy's funeral, that Jean Constant and his wife, Julie, were too distraught to deal with the arrangements.

Walson said Mackendy liked basketball, hockey and dodge ball. "He was very fun, very competitive," Walson said. "He never wanted the easy way out," meaning Mackendy would try his hardest to win.

"He was a very pleasant, a very friendly kid," said Jude Charles, a leader in the Lawrence Haitian community. He said Mackendy's death will ripple through the Haitian community.

"A young kid like that, the future of the community gone," Charles said.

Two months ago, after the family bought the Clinton Street house and moved from Water Street, they invited Charles to come by, but he was unable to visit until Saturday's tragedy brought him by to console the family.

"This is something unbelievable to see this family hurt," Charles said.

Torres said the tragedy could have been prevented with a fence in the area of Water Street and with education of students about the dangers of walking on ice flows in the river.

"They have to try and teach these kids the difference between ice in the pond and the running river," Torres said.

Francis, 9, survivor

Only a year in age and a few inches in height separated 9-year-old Francis Spraus from what he called "the little kids" in his group of friends.

But when the thin veil of ice covering the Merrimack River broke yesterday and Francis, along with six friends, went through the ice, he looked for his smaller pals first.

"Because we were the big kids, we're kind of responsible for the little kids," he said yesterday, sitting on his living room couch.

"I tried to take the little kids to the shore, but I couldn't because they started slipping," he said, describing how 8-year-old Mackendy Constant and 7-year-old Christopher Casado clung onto him for help. "So I stayed there to get them on the (floating pieces of) ice."

Francis' memory of the traumatic incident is "fuzzy," but he remembers that Mackendy could not hold on to him for long. He also remembers young Christopher Casado wrapping his arms around his shoulders "like a piggy-back," as Francis furiously kicked his legs to keep the two afloat.

"(Christopher's) head went under and he couldn't breathe so I tried to go under the water for him" and push him up, Francis said. "I tried to go down, but he slipped.

"I remember the last thing he said was, 'Francis...' "

Despite his heroic efforts, Francis, the youngest of three children, said he feels the saddest about the "little kids dying." Included in the "little kids" was 9-year-old Victor Baez, who also passed away.

"Some big kids didn't pay attention to the little kids," he said. "Since everybody knew how to swim, everyone thought they could swim under the ice."

"I tried to help the little kids, but I couldn't," he said. "I feel really sad because a lot of my friends died."

This morning, Francis told a reporter, "I thank God that God gave me another life.''

Francis said he used to teach Christopher, a second-grader who came up to about his chest in height, how to play basketball. Francis's best friend is Ivan Casado, who is Christopher's oldest brother and one of three boys to survive.

"Chris was my second-best friend. We liked to throw snowballs at each other," said Francis, a fourth-grader at the Guilmette School. "Ivan and him were like my brothers."

Francis said yesterday the horrific memories of Saturday don't seem real to him yet.

"They'll be in my head for a long time, though," he said.

"I wish none of this could have happened," he said. "I wish none of this could have happened to the little kids."

Victor, 9, dead

Mourners for Victor jammed into a home at 71 Bodwell St., with people standing, sitting on couches and crying. A person who appeared to be a priest stood at the back of the room holding a Bible.

Wailing could be heard coming from a room at the front of the house. A man who did not identify himself said he did not want anyone speaking for the family.

But a cousin of Victor Baez, 9, remembered him as a popular kid who always smiled. He liked basketball and going to the Boys & Girls Club.

"He was happy, friendly," said Katheryn Soto, 12, Baez's cousin. "He liked basketball a lot and never stopped going to the Boys & Girls Club."

As Katheryn spoke in her kitchen of 46 Bernard Ave. in the Hancock Courts housing complex, her mother wailed in front room, "Ay, papito!" Katheryn's mother would not give her name, but kept saying she thought of her nephew as a son.

"He was like my brother," Katheryn said. "We were together since we were little."

Katheryn said her younger brother liked to follow Victor around, but Saturday he was not with them. She said she was thankful for that because today he could have been dead too.

"I saw the newspaper and the story and I just started to cry," Katheryn said.

Christopher, 7, dead

Ivan, 9, survivor

Saturday night, Ivan Casado told the story of what happened to The Eagle-Tribune, saying, "I thought I was going to drown." He was the one who got himself out and ran for help.

Those were the words he used before he learned his brother Christopher was dead.

"Ivan went away with his father, Osiris Casado," said Ivan and Christopher's mother, Jacquiline Casado yesterday. "He doesn't want to talk because he feels guilty because they were together and he was able to save himself."

Jacquiline Casado sat on the couch yesterday surrounded by friends and family. Next to her sat an entertainment center filled with more than a dozen trophies her three kids -- Christopher, Ivan and 14-year-old who was not on the ice -- earned in basketball and baseball.

Occasionally, she broke into tears as people called on the phone.

"The kids were supposed to be at the Boys Club, but they don't control the kids," she said. "They were supposed to be inside the Boys Club playing."

She added that in seven years of her three sons attending the Boys Club, she never had a problem with supervision.

Family members of Ivan and Christopher Casado came from Santo Domingo, Miami and New York to comfort Ivan and his mother, said Reyna Estrella, the boys' aunt.

"Ivan is OK but he's very sad," Estrella said, coming out of the house at 18 Jaspert St. late last night. "Ivan is staying with his father," who lives in Lawrence, she said.

She said the family was looking forward to celebrating Christopher's eighth birthday on Dec. 28.

"We were already looking at our calendars."

This report was compiled by Gretchen M. Putnam with reports from staff writers Shawn Boburg, Shawn Regan, Jason Grosky, Ethan Forman and Meg Murphy.

© 2002 Eagle-Tribune Publishing

By Shawn Regan

Staff Writer

LAWRENCE -- The names of four children ages 7 to 11 who drowned Saturday after plunging through thin ice on the Merrimack River were read this morning over loudspeakers, followed by a moment of silence at each of the city's 18 schools.

Three of the dead -- Christopher Casado, 7, Mackendy Constant, 8, and Victor Baez, 9 -- attended Guilmette School. The fourth and oldest victim, William Rodriguez, 11, attended Parthum School. Three children who fell through the ice but survived attended either Guilmette, Parthum or Bruce schools.

Several uniformed police officers stood at different spots outside Guilmette School in the gently falling snow this morning. The officers guided away reporters and other curious people. At least three television camera crews tried talking to parents and children, who looked somber on their way into school.

One girl, Cynthia Mejia, 13, said she was visiting her aunt and playing outside Saturday when they heard sirens. She saw the boys being pulled from the river and immediately wondered whether any were her classmates. It turns out one was -- William was in her fifth-grade class last year.

This morning, Cynthia carried a newspaper account of the tragedy in her school backpack.

One parent, Camellia Marrero, was walking her 7-year-old son, Juan Maldonado, to school, saying she had tried over the weekend to talk to him about the deaths.

"It was difficult," she said.

Crossing guard Audrey Viveiros said the mood of students walking to school was "absolutely'' more serious today. She said more parents than usual were walking or driving their children to school.

"It's a terrible thing," she said.

Guilmette student Wilson Jimenez, 14, said he has eighth-grade history class with Walson Constant, brother of drowning victim Mackendy Constant. Wilson said he was upset when he saw TV news coverage of the deaths, and that his parents immediately warned him to never go on river ice. He said this morning that he was anxious to get to school to see his friends.

More than 45 councilors have been assigned to the three schools for grieving students and teachers, School Superintendent Wilfredo T. Laboy said. Police Chief John J. Romero contributed a large police presence at the school. The superintendent said in the future, schools will try to do a better job educating students about the dangers of pond and river ice.

"I think there's a lot to learn from the this tragedy," Laboy said. "These were Caribbean kids who probably didn't know how dangerous playing on the ice can be. These poor kids just used bad judgement and it cost them their lives."

City officials spent much of yesterday in meetings with Mayor Michael J. Sullivan planning how to help the community deal with the worst tragedy on the river in almost a century.

© 2002 Eagle-Tribune Publishing

By Meg Murphy and Jason Tait

Staff Writers

LAWRENCE -- People in this tight-knit neighborhood knew these boys. Maybe they knew their mothers, or cousins, or brothers, or maybe they simply told the boys to slow down when they ran to Hanson's Market for candy. Now they are trading memories, trying to make sense of a loss beyond reason.

On Saturday afternoon it was rainy and cold, so Jessica L. Papatola, 15, decided to call her older sister and go to a restaurant. She walked over to the corner store to use the pay phone. The boys ran past her, one leading the pack. She watched the last boy disappear around a corner, running fast to keep up.

Then she went inside Hanson's Market to chat with the clerk. When she left the store, Papatola wondered why there was a firetruck outside. It wasn't long before the scream of sirens filled the air and she knew something was wrong.

Across the street at Riverview Laundromat, Francisca Munoz saw a firetruck and stepped outside. A woman told her some boys fell though the ice. She thought of her 12-year-old nephew.

After a few terrifying minutes, Munoz found him watching a basketball game at the Boys and Girls Club. She brought him back to her Laundromat, leaving his sweater and bag at the club. Then she ran toward the Merrimack River.

The emergency workers were taking children out of the icy water. She watched them pull out the lifeless body of 9-year-old Victor Baez. Children from the Boys and Girls Club sometimes watch television at her shop while they wait for their parents to pick them up. She could not tell if Victor was a child she knew. It hardly mattered. He was a child. She thought of her four children and two grandchildren.

She could not stop crying.

Donna M. Hicks, a neighborhood mother, was standing on the riverbank watching the rescue efforts. The workers also pulled out the lifeless bodies of Christopher Casado, 7; Mackendy Constant, 8; and William Rodriguez, 11. Hicks' daughter went to grade school with three of the boys. She stood in the rain for two hours, wishing for a miracle.

Then she went home. She put on dry clothes, and returned to the riverbank with two pots of hot coffee.

She was among the neighbors who did not leave the river's edge until evening, when the rescue efforts slowly ended.

People in the community who witnessed the rescue did not sleep well that night. Munoz said the image of Victor being dragged from the water kept replaying in her mind. Another neighbor said she needed medication to sleep that night, which she never had needed before.

On Sunday morning, people had more questions than answers. Everyone who came to the Laundromat asked Munoz if she knew the children. People wondered aloud why the children were not at the Boys and Girls Club, and why such a tragedy had to strike their neighborhood. Alone on a curb in the Hancock Projects behind Guilmette School, 15-year-old Nathien Alicea sat crying in the rain after losing a relative and several friends to the icy Merrimack River.

He wanted to be around other people, clinging to groups of children who sat on porches in Water Street neighborhoods talking about the good times they had with the four boys who died Saturday.

"It's painful," Alicea said. "It's a tight community. We're just reminiscing about what happened."

Fanny Romero, Nathan's mother and cousin to the youngest drowning victim -- 7-year-old Christopher Casado -- was helping children in the neighborhood cope with the tragedy. She told the children to pray for the families.

"I tell them (the boys) died as little heroes," Romero said, explaining the conversations she's had with the struggling neighborhood youth. "I tell them they are little soldiers in heaven now, that God wanted them there."

Over at the Guilmette School, Geraldo Gonzales, 13, was bouncing a ball against a wall behind the new elementary school. He said he had been doing backflips on a mattress with two of the boys on Friday afternoon in the Hancock Projects. He had been up until 4 a.m. crying with his two brothers and sister, while his mother, Isabell Reyes, comforted them.

"Everybody is going to cry for these boys," he said. "It's sad because I won't see them again."

Reyes' eyes welled up with tears as she watched her son play.

"It's a big, sad tragedy," Reyes said. "Because I'm a mother, it makes me sad."

Alex Diaz, 10, a fourth-grader at Guilmette, was spending time alone outside the school yesterday afternoon. Alex hopes the school gives students time to draw cards this week to give to the mourning families.

"It's hard for me to believe," he said of losing his friends. "I hope we do something for the boys. It's gonna be sad for a lot of people at school."

At nighfall, Lilly M. Beauregard lit four red candles. She said a prayer, "God bless them all. We will miss them." Then Lilly, 12, set the candles neatly at the top of a steep bank about 20 feet from where the boys plunged into the river off Caulkins Court, a small dirt road leading to the river off Water Street.

The candle glow created a circle of light around the white roses and handmade cards left for the boys. She looked down at the small Christmas tree and angels, along with a piece of paper wedged between the candles that read "I will miss you Christopher."

Beauregard was at a birthday party at her aunt's house when she heard about the drowning. She knew three of the boys from school. She remembers how "little Victor" liked to make people laugh. He barked at her dog. Another of the boys, Mackendy, delivered newspapers to the house across the street.

She pointed to a cross by the water's edge, jutting out of dirt on the steep incline. She said her family left the cross there with the names of each boy on it. Then she hurried along the edge of the bank and into the distance.

Papatola was sitting on rock looking out at water. It looked serene and clear. The entire atmosphere was filled with warmth and light and prayer. Papatola said to no one in particular, "You know how boys are. They're daredevils."

She looked at a small yellow headband set on top of the flowers. She pressed it into her hand. It had an image of a basketball player on it, and people think it belonged to one of the boys.

"They were just going outside to play," she said.

© 2002 Eagle-Tribune Publishing

By Shawn Regan and Yadira Betances

Staff Writers

LAWRENCE -- This city of immigrants, no stranger to calamity over the years, has come together in anguish and support for the families of four small boys drowned in the Merrimack River on Saturday.

Friends, neighbors and newcomers -- black, brown and white -- contributed food, flowers and money to help the grieving families cope with the enormity of the tragedy.

City officials ordered flags flown at half-staff for the entire week.

Phones were "ringing off the hook" throughout yesterday with calls from those wanting to help, said Rachel Ortiz, the Northbank manager in charge of the Lawrence Children's Memorial Fund, established by the city to help the victims' families. About $1,500 had been contributed by 3 p.m. yesterday.

Some people, Ortiz said, could afford to give only 50 cents. One person gave $500 and another $250. All donations were accompanied by words of heartache and sympathy for the children.

Zoa Mendez, owner of Mendez Flowerloons, said she's been besieged with orders for "baby boy" arrangements of white and light blue flowers. "I'm so sad for the families and the others of these little kids," she said.

Throughout the day and night, friends and strangers have supplied food to the families of the victims.

Eva Rojas, known for her savory Dominican dishes, was prominent among the generous.

"I know exactly how it is because I've been there before," said Rojas.

In 1994, her 7-year-old granddaughter suffocated when her mouth and nose were wrapped in duct tape during a robbery at the family home. As of now, the tragedy galvanized the community and brought an outpouring of sympathy and support from strangers as well as and friends.

"This is my way of giving back," Rojas said.

"You appreciate everything," she said. "Not just the financial contributions. When you see people around you, it makes you feel better."

Mayor Michael J. Sullivan spent the early part of yesterday meeting with family members and later hosted several young friends and family members of the victims in his office and provided them with pizza.

Police Chief John J. Romero handed out plastic police badges and stayed with the children for about an hour.

The deaths of William Rodriguez, 11, Victor Baez, 9, Mackendy Constant, 8, and Christopher Casado, 7, was the worst tragedy on the Merrimack River since 1913, when 11 youths drowned in the collapse of a bathhouse.

Lawrence, a 70,000-population city that is now 60 percent Hispanic, has a history of coping with disaster, from the collapse of the Pemberton Mill in 1860 that claimed 70 lives to devastation of the Malden Mills fire that injured 30 workers in 1995.

As in the past, tragedy brought people together across cultural lines.

Among the orders for flowers at Mendez Flowerloons was one from the Hennessey School, where Thelma Gomez, mother of drowning victim Victor Baez, works with kindergarteners as a teacher's aide.

Her Hennessey friends have surrounded her since Saturday night, preparing meals for her family.

"We have not left her alone, and a group is going back over to be with her this afternoon," Assistant Principal Mary W. Hargreaves said yesterday.

Hargreaves said Gomez has taken the death particularly hard, since she was at the hospital holding Victor's hand as workers pumped his heart and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

"She was begging, 'Keep working on him. Please don't give up,' " Hargreaves said, recalling the story Gomez told her. "To have been there is especially trying for her. She's a very strong lady, but she's devastated by this."

Family of other victims also sought refuge with friends or relatives. Siblings were kept home from school and parents stayed home from work.

Maria Rodriguez, mother of William, one of the four boys who drowned, said she appreciates the help she has been getting from family members and friends, difficult as it is to accept.

"There are moments when I don't want to see anyone, and it's not that I want to be rude, but this pain is unbearable," Rodriguez said.

Elisa Franco and Gina Guzman, aunts of drowning victim Victor Baez, said it's a good thing so many people have come to their aid. "At this time, family members are not strong enough to do anything and it helps," Guzman said.

She recalls her nephew as a "typical boy" who enjoyed basketball, baseball and playing with cars. She had bought him a remote-controlled car for Christmas.

At the Rodriguez family's home yesterday, a make-shift shrine to William shared the corner of the living room by the window with the Christmas tree. William's mother sobbed from time to time, her body wracked with grief. His father, Eufemio, struggled with his composure as he discussed the foundation that had been set up by the city to help the families of the dead children.

"I feel better knowing that people want to help," Rodriguez said in Spanish, his son Eufemio Jr., 17, translating. "But the pain in my family is still here and it will take a long time to go away. Every morning we wake up and the house feels so empty. William had so much energy, he filled the house."

The younger Eufemio said he, too, was grateful for the community support, but that no amount of help will replace his brother.

"It's still like a dream," he said. "I miss him with all my heart. Thank you for everything. Thank you for all your support. But I just don't see the healing.''

At the 11 Clinton Court home of Mackendy Constant, Christmas lights wrapped around the handrail at the front steps were dark. Inside, family members peered from behind a half open door and warm air rushed out from inside a dimly-lit entry. Mackendy's father Jean wiped tired grief from tearless eyes as he discussed the outpouring of help from friends and relatives.

"Nothing can help for the loss of my son," said the Haitian native, who moved his family here eight years ago.

Jacquiline Casado, mother of Christopher and Ivan Casado, was grieving and did not want to comment, said a woman who answered the door at the family's 18 Jasper St. home.

Ysabel Morales, mother of Jaycob Morales, one of the three boys who survived Saturday's fall through the ice, said her son is doing okay. She said he is eager to go back to school and back to the Boys and Girls Club, but that he is still unable to talk about what happened to his friends.

"As soon as he woke up, he asked for food and drink," she said. "But every time he talks about it, he starts crying."

The Rev. Jorge A. Reyes of St. Mary's Church, which will pay to bury three of the boys at its Lawrence cemeteries, spoke of the river tragedy at Sunday Mass, asking parishioners to reach out to the four families. He encouraged even strangers moved by the tragedy to send the families a card or visit them and offer condolences, having himself received a call of support from a fellow priest in Florida.

"This is supposed to be a time of celebration, with Christmas coming, and I'm sure these families have already bought Christmas gifts for these children," Reyes said of the victims' families. "How do you find in your spirit a way of celebrating when you have in your hands such a tragedy?"

Reyes and the Rev. William Waters visited several families last night, meeting with them individually at their homes.

Perhaps the most common question in a tragedy such as this is why, the two priests said.

"We just have to accept God's planning," Reyes said. "We have to put our faith in God that he, in his wisdom, that he somehow knows."

Said Waters, "Sometimes we just have to live without an answer. I know that's not very supportive for people who just lost a loved one, but if we had all the answers, that would make us God, and we're not."

Later yesterday, Eva Rojas, Eufemio Rodriguez and his son Eufemio Jr. paid a visit to the Clinton Court home of Mackendy Constant, the smallest of the boys who drowned. They sat in the sparsely decorated living room on a brown leather sofa talking and sharing tears and embraces with Mackendy's parents, Jean and Julie, and other family members.

Friends sat on folding chairs in another room while others prepared food in a tiny kitchen. Children, including Mackendy's three younger brothers, scampered around the house playing with a motorized skateboard toy.

"We've received support from everywhere," said Mackendy's uncle, Canes Monta. "The phone keeps ringing with people calling to express sympathy. They are bringing us food and flowers and even have cooked for us when we have been unable to do it ourselves. We didn't expect it but it feels wonderful. It gives me the courage to go on without my favorite boy."

"I never met them before, but we will probably stay friends forever now," added Eufemio Rodriguez. "We will have something in common forever."

Staff Writers Jason B. Grosky and Tim Wacker contributed to this report.

© 2002 Eagle-Tribune Publishing