TWO BOYS DROWN IN BLACK RIVER

In what was supposed to be an afternoon of fishing Saturday, two Poplar Bluff boys drowned in the Black River.

According to witnesses and Poplar Bluff Police Department reports, the two boys - Aaron R. Jones, 14, and Bobby M. Young, 11, Poplar Bluff - were fishing at the Sportsmen's Park boat ramp with two friends shortly after 2 p.m. when they decided to go wading.

As Jones walked along the underwater end of the ramp, he apparently stepped off the end into deeper water and was swept away by the current, made even stronger by high water, reports said. Trying to rescue him, Young also was claimed by the current.

Perry Moore, 58, of 448 Lester St. was apparently the only adult with the boys and waded into the river after them. However, Moore said his false leg disconnected soon after entering the water and that he was barely able to make it back to shore. Moore said he then saw the boys slip under the water, apparently overwhelmed by the current.

"He just went right down," Moore later said of one victim. "He must have panicked or something."

At 2:15 p.m., Moore called city police, who then notified the Missouri Water Patrol and Poplar Bluff Emergency Management Agency. Within half an hour, four boats were plying the river with drag gear, large metal triangles with several four-pronged fish hooks hanging from the ends. Citizen volunteers ventured into the swollen, muddy river to look, but found nothing. Eight to 10 police spotters were posted downriver, watching for bodies. Divers were not sent, however, due to zero visibility in the muddy water.

At 3:50 p.m., a water patrolman's drag hook snared the body of the Jones just a few yards from where he stepped into the water. City police and EMA personnel located Jones' body at 4:33 p.m., about 200 feet downstream. Both bodies were taken from the scene in Doctors Regional Medical Center ambulances. Considering the high water, rescuers estimated the rivers was about 15-feet deep where the bodies were found.

The boys' two accompanying friends, Carlos Shaw, 15, and Arthur Gilmore II, age unavailable, both of Poplar Bluff, said the victims wanted them to wade, too.

"I was fishing and (one) called me `chicken' because I wouldn't go in," Shaw said, as squawks and muffled voices from police radios mingled with mournful cries of onlooking relatives.

EMA volunteers said the Black River near Sportsmen's Park, with its strong current and undertow, has always been dangerous to swimmers. It was even more so Saturday afternoon, with an uneven, flood-swelled depth of probably 12 to 18 feet.

"Nothing I could do," said Moore, who attended Lively Stone Church with the victims. "I wish I hadn't brought them. We were here to fish, not swim."