Local & State Headlines

Body pulled from river

• Funeral arrangements for two Sunday drowning victims have not been set.

Joshua Brown

ALBANY — Two boys who were playing on some rocks in the Flint River Sunday afternoon were swept down river by the current, resulting in the deaths of one of the boys and a man who tried to rescue him, police records show.

Joshua Perry, 11, died as D.J. Vinson, 23, attempted to pull him from the current of the Flint River Sunday afternoon. Perry’s body was recovered about 7 p.m. Sunday and Vinson’s body was recovered about 10 a.m. Monday, Albany Fire Chief James Carswell said Monday.

The bodies were about 40 feet apart from each other in a dip in the river’s floor, he said. Officials called off the search during the night because of safety concerns.

Joshua Perry and his brother, Matthew, 10, had been at Friendship Fountain near the Flint RiverQuarium earlier Sunday while their father was with his daughter at Turtle Park, according to the report.

When the father, Timothy, noticed the boys were not where he told them to be he went to look for them, the report states. About that time, Krystal Reaves came up from the river bank to say there were some boys drowning in the river, according to the report.

Her husband, Jonathan Reaves, a diver who was snorkeling in the river near the boys, said he was warned by his wife that the two boys were in trouble.

“These two little boys came down, she told them they needed to get out of the water,” he said. “Next thing I know, my wife’s hollering at me, ‘Get them! They got carried away by the current!’ ”

Reaves said he swam out and had one of the boys on his arm and the other on his back while he stood on a rock for several minutes, fighting to keep the three of them above water. When he saw Vinson and several others carrying fishing poles along the river, he told them to help him get the children to shore.

Vinson and his friends linked hands and stretched themselves out into the flowing river as Reaves began paddling toward shore.

But it was a panicked Joshua Perry who grabbed Reaves’ snorkeling mask before falling back into the water. The turn of events has left Reaves feeling “horrible,” he said.

“It just happened so quick,” the still-upset 31-year-old Reaves said, his voice occasionally quivering. “I mean, you just won’t have that feeling until it happens to you, knowing you got one of them but watching the other one drown.”

When the boy fell into the water, Vinson leapt in after him.

“D.J. had the boy, but couldn’t do anything because the current was so strong,” Reaves said.

In the report, Reaves told police he remembered seeing his mask still wrapped around Joshua Perry’s arm as he went under water.

The mask would later be recovered.

Reaves remembered then seeing Vinson go underwater.

“I mean, I’m 200 pounds, 6-foot-1, and it’s hard for me to swim in that current, much less trying to carry two kids — or one kid for that matter,” he said. “If you’re not an experienced diver or swimmer, it’s not a good idea to be down there — and sometimes it’s not a good idea to be down there if you are.”

Even though he goes to the river to snorkel about every weekend, Reaves said he never goes without bringing someone to watch him in case something goes awry.

“You don’t ever want to go down there by yourself. The water’s so swift, anything can happen,” he said.

Funeral arrangements had not been set by the families as of Monday evening. Perry’s body will be sent to Atlanta for an autopsy because of state law, although the cause of death for Perry and Vinson is accidental drowning, Coroner Emma Quimbley said.

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