- July 1st, 2006, 9:44 pm
#19760
I haven't many details but heard a LU student was missing in the James River. There was a canoe accident on Friday. Please keep in prayers.
Moderators: jcmanson, Sly Fox, BuryYourDuke
Liberty University Student Missinghttp://www.wsls.com/servlet/Satellite?p ... !localnews
Britt Conway / WSLS NewsChannel 10
Jul 1, 2006
The Maury River after heavy rain. Robert Foresman says it's dangerous. He's out there with rescue crews looking for a 21 year old Liberty University studen.
"It is strong enough that it could pull you under...and not come back up."
And that's what rescue workers say happened on Friday. Crews and family members will not release the students name but say he was on the river with a friend.
"A young man had flipped a raft, was seen once, went back under and we have not seen him since."
His friend saw it happen and ran to the railroad tracks for help. Rescue crews are still searching.
"And see if they can find a body. We do think that it is a body at this time. We do feel that it's a recover and we're going to stay here until we do find a body."
The water has gone down more than a foot since friday night but the water is just as rough.
Britt: Does that make it even harder for you to find him?
Robert: Well it does when the water is up and running so hard it does make it.
Which is why they're telling people not to go in the water and making them come out if they do.
"What they don't understand, this is not like white water rafting. This is dangerous because there's a lot of debris in the river that has been swept down from other locations."
I talked with a close friend of the family, she says they are an absolute mess right now...understandably. She describes them as being a really close family so they are an emotional wreck right now she says because they are coming to the realization that worst is inevitable.
"It's very difficult having to look a mother in the eye and tell her that one of her children is probably gone."
July 1, 2006http://www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S ... 8&nav=S6aK
Rescue crews search the James River for a missing college student
Rescue crews continue to search the James River for a missing college age student, between the Balcony Falls area near Glasgow and Snowden in Amherst County.
Officials fear a Liberty University student has drowned.
Crews have been searching the river in both Rockbridge and Amherst Counties for more than 24 hours. After battling class three and four rapids, officials say the search has become more of a recovery than a rescue.
Search continues for missing LU studenthttp://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Sate ... 8808&path=
By Britt Conway
WSLS Newschannel 10
July 3, 2006
Rescue crews have spent the weekend searching for a Liberty University student who fell into the Maury River while rafting Friday, but to no avail.
The effort to find the 21-year-old student began as a search and rescue, but authorities now are calling it a search and recovery.
“We do think it is a body at this time,” said Robert Foresman of Rockbridge County’s emergency management department.
Authorities have not named the student but said he was rafting with a friend in Rockbridge County.
The 30-mile-long Maury River is entirely within Rockbridge County, west of Amherst County, and merges with the James River.
The student and his friend were on the river Friday when the boat flipped, authorities said.
His friend ran for help. The missing student has not been seen since.
Choppy water and debris in the river have complicated search efforts, authorities said.
The News & Advance staff writer Matt Busse contributed to this report.
Sly Fox wrote:In my experience with the Falwell family over the past 30+ years, they have never been shy about stating what they believe and standing by it. If anything it should be on their family crest.
Authorities release name of student believed drowned in James Riverhttp://www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S ... u368_2_9_3
The search is still underway for a missing Liberty University student who may have drowned in the James River.
Authorities said the search for 21 year old Aaron Cooper of Coventry, Rhode Island, resumed this morning.
Robert Foresman of the Rockbridge County Emergency Management says crews are searching a two to three mile stretch of the river.
Cooper was last seen wearing swimming trunks and silver Nike tennis shoes with red cushions in the back of them.
Sly Fox wrote:In my experience with the Falwell family over the past 30+ years, they have never been shy about stating what they believe and standing by it. If anything it should be on their family crest.
July 4, 2006http://www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S ... 5&nav=S6aK
Missing rafter's body found in James River
Authorities in Rockbridge County have recovered the body of a Liberty University student missing since Friday afternoon. 21 year old Aaron Cooper went into the water while rafting with a friend in the James River.
Crews scoured the river for three days without success, but this morning, a patrol from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries spotted his body in an area known as Balcony Falls. It was found about 150 yards from where Cooper was last seen.
Authorities say they are sorry it took four days to recover Cooper's body, but they hope today's news will provide some closure for his family and friends.
Liberty University student's body foundhttp://newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellit ... 7471&path=
By Erin France
efrance@newsadvance.com
July 4, 2006
The body of 21-year-old Liberty University student Aaron Cooper was found Tuesday morning after a five-day search of the James River.
Cooper was found 500 yards from where he was last seen, said Robert Foresman, the emergency management coordinator for Rockbridge County.
A search boat sent by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries found the body.
After the official search was called off Sunday night, game wardens pledged to send a search boat down the river twice a day.
On the first pass Tuesday morning, a boat discovered the body, which had eluded police dogs and divers for three days.
The search began Friday afternoon, Foresman said, when there was an afternoon report issued of a male subject disappearing.
The report stated he had been rafting and had fallen into the river.
Search teams were formed from area fire departments and a swift water rescue team.
The teams concentrated on the area between Balcony Falls and Snowden Dam.
The Rockbridge Sheriff’s Department Dive Team investigated Friday a location where a police dog picked up a scent, Foresman said.
Two dogs stopped at the same location Sunday, but dive teams could not find anything in the area.
Searchers where joined by search and rescue teams from Virginia and Maryland.
There also was a state police helicopter searching for Cooper on Saturday, Foresman said.
He said he notified Cooper’s family Tuesday morning of the discovery.
WSLS contributed to this report.
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
For some, Internet eases pain of a losshttp://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Sate ... ws!archive
By Matt Busse
Lynchburg News & Advance
July 5, 2006
On Monday, comments left on Aaron Cooper’s MySpace Web site wished for his safe return.
Cooper, a 21-year-old Liberty University student from Rhode Island, had been missing since Friday after authorities said his boat flipped over in the James River.
Cooper’s page on MySpace, a popular social networking Web site, became a forum for friends and family to share hope.
“Well I think it’s time you come home because I dunno how much more I can handle,” a 20-year-old Liberty University student named Jeannine wrote Monday.
On Tuesday, Cooper’s body was found in the river in Rockbridge County, about 500 yards from where he had last been seen.
The tone of the comments changed to a mixture of mourning his death and expressing comfort in the thought that he would now be in a better place.
“You will be missed by all,” wrote Greg, a 22-year-old in Rhode Island. “You were a great friend and an even better person.”
Tom, 21, who goes by the initials “TK,” wrote: “I know I’ll be catching you again, and I’ll be looking forward to it for the rest of my life.”
MySpace and Facebook, a similar networking Web site aimed at the collegiate crowd, allow users to post pictures, write about hobbies and send messages to each other.
They most commonly are used to meet new people and keep in touch with old friends. The sites can give an impression of who someone is - or who they want to be - to anyone who visits from around the world.
Cooper’s MySpace page describes him as 6 feet, 4 inches tall, athletic and Christian. It features pictures of him playing baseball and hanging out with friends.
Though online memorials to the deceased have been around for several years, the growing popularity of such sites as MySpace and Facebook appear to be boosting the trend.
“I think it’s a resource that’s now available that helps all of us to be able to communicate across the barriers of distance and work schedules and other commitments,” said Nona Puckett, a counselor with Peachtree Counseling Center on Leesville Road.
Puckett said it’s natural, especially for younger people who are accustomed to using the Internet for a variety of reasons.
“It’s excellent for them to have a resource to express their feelings and grief about the loss that they’ve experienced,” she said.
MySpace and Facebook are not the only venues on the Internet for mourners.
Sometimes, friends and relatives will design their own online memorial, setting up a special Web page as a tribute.
Mike Winfree, a local photographer, died in July 2005 at age 48 after an accident at Nag’s Head, N.C.
A year later, the Blue Ridge Photographic Arts Society’s Web site still hosts a page with a picture of Winfree, examples of his work and hundreds of comments left by friends and family.
The last comment, written Aug. 6 and signed by Becky Johnson, reads in part: “God can heal all wounds, even though we may not understand why we must lose the one we love.”
Some funeral homes’ Web sites offer their own services for online bereavement.
Heritage Funeral Service and Crematory, for example, has a form visitors can fill out. Funeral home officials print out the comments and give them to relatives of the deceased.
John Saville, the funeral home’s owner, said the service has been available for four or five years and chiefly is used by out-of-town Web site visitors.
Newspapers’ Web sites, including The News & Advance’s, are expanding to include online guestbooks for people to leave messages.
Meanwhile, Cooper’s friends still are adding comments, turning his MySpace page into a tribute to his life.
“You are a great guy,” a 24-year-old MySpace user named Rachel wrote Wednesday, “and I am happy to know that you are up in Heaven looking down on us and we will see you again.”
Sly Fox wrote:In my experience with the Falwell family over the past 30+ years, they have never been shy about stating what they believe and standing by it. If anything it should be on their family crest.
Coventry man, 21, drowns in Virginiahttp://www.projo.com/news/content/projo ... ac1ed.html
Aaron Cooper, a student at an evangelical Christian university, "lived for God," says his mother.
01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, July 6, 2006
BY LISA VERNON-SPARKS
Journal Staff Writer
COVENTRY -- "All out, all the time, all the way."
This is the team slogan for the Crusaders of the First Baptist Christian School in Warwick. It was the code that friends say Aaron Cooper, a 2002 graduate and star athlete, lived by.
Cooper, 21, was attending Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., when on Friday he braved the James River's rocky waters on a rafting lark with a college friend.
Cooper and his friend ventured onto the rain-swollen river in individual inflatable rubber rafts. Cooper, who was not wearing a life jacket, was tossed into the water where the rapids were "very, very severe," according to an official.
Tuesday morning, authorities from the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries found Cooper's body in the James River, said Robert Foresman, emergency management coordinator for Rockbridge County.
A graduate of First Baptist Christian School, a K-12 school with 122 students on Cowesett Road in Warwick, Cooper was majoring in sports management at the evangelical Christian university.
Yesterday, friends and family remembered Cooper as a great athlete who was in love with life and devoted to his spiritual beliefs.
"He was a good, strong Christian boy. He was a blessing to his grandparents. He lived for God," Gail Cooper, his mother, said with a quivering voice. "He was a great athlete. You never knew if this boy won or lost a game. He had a great disposition."
Gail was in Virginia yesterday with her husband and Cooper's father, Kevin. The family lives on Noella Avenue in Coventry. She said her son lived to bring others to Christ.
"I'm hoping someone comes to know Christ through his death. That's what we are praying for," she said.
In Rhode Island, Cooper had been a marquee player for First Baptist's Crusaders. He played varsity soccer and basketball in the New England Association of Christian Schools League and the Coastal Prep League, according to John Stricklin, the school's associate pastor .
Cooper's passion was baseball, said Stephen Stricklin, the associate pastor's brother and former coach of First Baptist who had known Cooper since he was an eighth grader.
"He is the kind of guy that was easily coached . . . ," said Stricklin, who kept in touch with Cooper. "He won multiple MVP awards in sports. He was a great athlete and great teammate. He had an excellent spirit."
Stricklin said he did not know of Cooper's interest in rafting, but said he knew how to swim and was comfortable in the water.
The news of finding his body is sad, but it does give closure, Stricklin added.
"I was hoping and praying they find him alive somewhere in the mountains," Stricklin said. "In your mind, your imagination runs wild. It does bring comfort to know what happened to him. Honestly, as a Christian, I know where he is."
Copper and his friend were rafting on a river that's known locally as "very treacherous," Foresman said. After flooding in the region last week, when the river crested at 3 feet above flood stage, the river had retreated by Friday to a condition Foresman described as "very full."
An autopsy conducted Tuesday morning confirmed that Cooper died by drowning, said Dr. William Massello, assistant chief medical examiner with the chief medical examiner's office in Roanoke, Va.
In the area where Cooper fell into the water, the river typically would have been anywhere from 6 to 15 feet deep. It was deeper than that when he fell in, Foresman said.
Foresman coordinated a four-day search for Cooper that had, at its peak, 100 people plying the river. After the search was officially called off Monday night, the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries agreed to send a boat patrol out on the river in the morning and afternoon, Foresman said.
On their first trip up the river yesterday morning, crews found Cooper's body less than 500 yards downstream from where he was believed to have fallen in in the middle of the river, Foresman said.
Foresman said he does not know if Cooper had rafted on the river before. But his friend Falwell had been on the river a couple of times, he said.
Cooper's friend reported the accident to a nearby railroad crew, and those employees called 911, Foresman said.
The last death on the river was two or three years ago, Foresman said, but the area where Cooper fell in is a stretch where people very often flip their canoes and kayaks.