James River Journal: A day of reckless fun and tragedy

Shortly after sunrise at Pony Pasture Rapids, birds sang, runners stretched, and a few people walked dogs.

No one seemed to notice a young couple, their little girl and a man with a Bible quietly walking down some steps to the James River.

After the man read some Scripture, the mother opened a plastic baggy and poured something like brown sand into the river.

The couple, who asked not to be identified, said their daughter, Gabrielle, had died in the womb of a birth defect. They just had placed her ashes in the James.

"Besides our house, we spent more time at the river than any other place with our daughter," the father said.

"This is one of the most beautiful places to just sit by and look out and see God's creation. To see the water, the beautiful weather, the animals, the ducks. It's just something paintings are made of."

. . .

Shortly after 8 a.m. the same day, the riverside serenity was broken by a "Woo! Woo! Woo!" that sounded like an Indian call from a bad cowboy film.

Sandra Millican, 65, was calling her dog, Honey, a Shar-Pei rescued from Hurricane Katrina.

"There's a whole group that brings their dogs down here," Millican said. "Everybody knows everybody's dog's name and all that kind of stuff. You may not even know the adult that they're with . . . but you know who their dog is."

. . .

The smell of grilled food came wafting through the trees at about 10 a.m. In Pony Pasture's main open area, beside the steps to the water, about 20 adults and children were cooking out and lounging in hammocks.

"I think this is lunch," said Domingo Sanchez, cooking steak strips and wrapping them in tortillas. Originally from Mexico, he had risen at 4:30 a.m. to drive here from his home in Durham, N.C.

Liliana Vigil, 11, and Armando Guevarra, 8, of Alexandria played in the cold, muddy water at the foot of the steps -- the spot where the ashes had been dropped that morning. Asked what he liked about the river, Armando said, "The fish."

. . .

The day was a gorgeous recent Saturday -- blue sky, mid-80s -- and by early afternoon people were pouring into Pony Pasture. The parking lot was so busy that volunteers directed traffic.

An estimated 500,000 people visit James River Park each year. By comparison, Pocahontas State Park in Chesterfield County draws about 350,000.

Pony Pasture and Belle Isle, two of James River Park's most popular spots, would each draw 1,000 people or more on this day.

When the river tops 5 feet at a gauge near Huguenot Bridge, a city ordinance bars people from the water unless they are wearing life jackets. Swollen from recent rains, the James was 6½ feet deep.

The river's bottom is not flat but full of holes and rocks. Regardless of what the gauge says, you could find yourself in 2, 5 or 10 feet of very fast water.

A few people in their teens and 20s waded out a short distance to bask on rocks. One young man swam through rapids about 30 yards offshore, falling several times as he tried to steady himself on rocks.

A sign by the water said: "River Level Above 5 Feet . . . Life Jacket Required."

No one wore life jackets.

A police officer in a patrol car beside the river watched but didn't get anyone out of the water.

Ralph White, the park's manager, said authorities use their discretion when the level is between 5 and about 6½ feet.

The water would have to get a little higher, and more dangerous, before people were literally kept from the water, White said.

. . .

At Belle Isle, a wooded, trail-lined island near downtown, a small crowd watched four men who appeared to be in trouble in the river. The men were hanging onto rocks and clinging to two canoes. At least two of the men were in the water. One canoe was badly bent from crashing into a rock.

One of the guys looked at the crowd, raised both arms in the air and shouted not "Help!" but "I need a beer!"

They eventually got their canoes moving and made it to the island.

The men said the canoes capsized when they went through some major rapids. They apparently meant Hollywood Rapids, Richmond's biggest, most dangerous torrent -- a place where two experienced paddlers have died since 2003.

Didn't these men know how notorious that passage is?

"Not really," said John Fuller, 34, of Chesterfield County, in the beat-up boat.

"We do now," a buddy said.

. . .

The skies darkened and rain began to fall about 4 p.m. Ana Whelan and Jessica Armistead, both 18, bumped into each other on a Belle Isle rock and slipped into the raging river.

Whelan was swept about 20 yards downstream where boyfriend Billy Giles, 18, pulled her out. Armistead washed past but was able to make her way to land.

"I really thought I was going to die," said Whelan, shivering in the rain. "I couldn't breathe. Like, every time I came up, I got pushed right back down. It like sucks you down."

The two Henrico women were bruised from hitting rocks. Whelan's right hip bled.

Friend Adrian Taylor, 19, had watched the drama from the bank.

"I didn't do no saving," Taylor said. "I can't swim. I was doing the panicking."

. . .

The scene was even more serious at Huguenot Flatwater, a normally calm stretch in the park just upriver from Pony Pasture.

At about 5:30 p.m., a man climbed about 25 feet up a tree to swing out on a rope tied to a nearby sycamore, said witness Tucker Matthews. At that height, there was no tension on the rope and no knot to grab.

The man had been drinking beer, and in the tree he was hooting and shouting, said Matthews, an 18-year-old from Chesterfield who was swimming with a friend.

When the man jumped, he went straight down, the rope ripping from his hand, but he landed feet first, Matthews said. "We thought he would be fine."

After being underwater for about 30 seconds, the man popped up for about two seconds. The current had carried him about 30 feet downstream.

"His eyes were wide open," Matthews said. "He kind of looked around. . . . I don't know if he was conscious or not at that point."

The man went back down and didn't come up.

Matthews called police. Swimmers and three women in a canoe helped the authorities but couldn't find him.

"We passed the area several times, but it was really murky," said Lynn Le, one of the paddlers. "So we couldn't see anything."

About an hour later, authorities found the body of Carlos David Gonzalez-Baldizon, 36, of Chesterfield, slightly farther downriver. He had drowned. He wore no life jacket.

. . .

At Belle Isle, people huddled under shelters and trees to get out of the rain. Under one shelter, a young man strummed a guitar while another pounded a picnic table like a drum. A middle-aged man on a cell phone looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. A man in a wheelchair rolled nervously in circles. Most people waited patiently.

When the rain let up about 5:45 p.m., the rivergoers began emerging like wet animals.

Some left. Some sat on rocks. A few got back into that brown water they love.

Contact Rex Springston at (804) 649-6453 or .