Atlanta ice: Dead teens' friend had just been warned about danger

By Larry Hartstein

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ryan Lewallen was supposed to meet Jacob Bullock and Marvens Mathurin, fellow eighth-graders at Osborne Middle School, in a Dacula subdivision Saturday afternoon. But he was running a little late.

Lewallen's father, David, can't help but wonder what would have happened had Ryan gotten there earlier. The day before, David Lewallen had lectured his son not to try walking on their iced-over swimming pool.

"Children being children, you don't know what could have happened," David Lewallen said Sunday. "I would like to think he would have stopped them altogether."

Bullock, 14, and Mathurin, 13, died after falling in an iced-over lake in the Daniel Park subdivision. Another friend, Mill Creek High freshman Alex Paul, was able to climb out of the water. He suffered hypothermia but was released from the hospital late Saturday night.

The boys were playing in the middle of the lake when the thin sheet of ice cracked, fire officials said.

David Lewallen said Mathurin fell in first, prompting Bullock and Paul to try to save him.

Rescue workers were dispatched at 2:29 p.m. Saturday. Paul was out of the water and trying to find the other two when crews arrived, Fire Capt. Tommy Rutledge said.

The lake, surrounded by houses, sits beside a covered pavilion, basketball courts and a grassy area where neighbors say the boys likely accessed the lake. Rescue workers backed their trucks into the grass to try to rescue the boys.

Firefighters used a boat to move across the lake, through broken ice. Using 10-foot poles, they were able to locate the boys at the bottom of the lake, estimated at 8 to 10 feet deep.

"They were in there for almost an hour," Rutledge said.

On Friday, Ryan Lewallen and his 8-year-old sister were in the backyard talking about walking on their frozen swimming pool.

"That's children -- they're drawn to that," their father said. "Even my 15-year-old, he's like, ‘Dad, I can walk on that. Even if you fell through, you can just come right back up.' I was trying to explain to him, ‘Son, it's not that simple. When you're talking about freezing water, it doesn't happen that way.'"

Bullock and Mathurin were pronounced dead Saturday evening at Gwinnett Medical Center. Rescue workers had hoped their youth would help them survive the incident.

"This is a very tragic situation," Rutledge said. "Our thoughts and prayers are now with the family and friends."

The teens' deaths come after nearly 30 reports of children playing on frozen bodies of water in Gwinnett County, Rutledge said. Although frozen ponds and lakes might look safe to walk across, they're often not strong enough to support a person's weight.

"We cannot stress [it] enough," Rutledge said. "We know it is tempting, but it is important that people stay off the ice."

-- Staff writers Alexis Stevens and Mashaun D. Simon contributed to this report.