Pond deaths: Principal says classmates struggling to cope

By Ralph Ellis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Students at a Gwinnett County middle school mourned Monday morning for two classmates who died over the weekend in a frozen pond.

“Some of these students saw the bodies pulled from the lake,” said John Campbell, principal at Osborne Middle School. “That’s hard for anybody at any age to deal with, but when you’re 13 years old, that’s tough,” he told the AJC.

Jacob Bullock, 14, and Marvens Mathurin, 13, died Saturday afternoon when ice broke on a lake at the Daniel Creek subdivision in Dacula. A third friend, Alex Paul, a freshman at Mill Creek High, survived the plunge into the icy water.

Campbell said eight grief counselors and school psychologists were brought in to augment the counseling staff of the 1,650-student school. At the start of the day, Campbell addressed the students through the closed-circuit television system.

“For many kids, this is their first loss,” he said. “This is not a normal day at Osborne Middle School.”

Campbell said the suddenness of the deaths stunned students and faculty. On Saturday morning, Bullock and Mathurin attended an eighth-grade basketball game. A few hours later, they were dead.

On Sunday, Paul described what happened. Paul said he and his two buddies went onto the frozen lake at their Gwinnett County subdivision Saturday afternoon after seeing some girls playing on the ice.

After the girls left the friends spent “a good 20 or 30 minutes” playing on the solid part of the ice, Paul said. Paul said he and Bullock had almost reached shore when Mathurin called out.

“He said, ‘Alex, help me please,’ " Paul, 15, said Sunday afternoon while standing in the shadow of the Daniel Creek subdivision clubhouse. Looking around, Paul saw that Marvens had broken through the ice.

Paul said he crawled on the ice flat on his stomach to save Mathurin while Bullock walked behind, “but the whole ice collapsed and Jacob fell in.”

Soon, Mathurin and Bullock had disappeared beneath the chilled water, their deaths becoming a tragic cautionary tale from the weekend ice storm.

“I tried to get myself out but the ice kept breaking,” Paul said. “I told Jacob to do like I was doing but he said he couldn’t do it.”

Paul managed to reach shore as rescue personnel arrived. Tommy Rutledge, spokesman for the Gwinnett County Fire Department, said responders made taking care of the survivor their first priority and by training don’t go into the water until their equipment has arrived.

When the boat arrived, firefighters used it to move across the lake through the broken ice. Using 10-foot poles, they pulled the bodies of Mathurin and Bullock from the icy water.

Much of the neighborhood got a first-hand look at the tragedy Saturday afternoon, a bright and chilly day. About 20 of the gabled, two-story houses that characterize this well-kept subdivision in Dacula surround the lake.

On Sunday, about 300 classmates and neighbors poured out to remember the two well-liked teenagers by gathering at the lakeside. News of the event spread by text and e-mail. It started at 2:30 p.m. – 24 hours after the drownings.

Prayers were said, tears shed and hugs exchanged. A group of girls gathered in a circle to share memories of the two lost friends.

Two wooden crosses were driven into the ground at the shoreline and tokens – teddy bears, notes, balloons, flowers, a can of Monster energy drink – piled on top. At one point Paul, a freshman at Mill Creek High, sat on a nearby bench and stared at the memorials and the frozen lake while friends and relatives gathered around.

Classmate Samantha Centers said Mathurin "was funny. He liked to do a dance called the jerk. He never held back his thoughts and he always said what he thought.”

Mathurin, born in New Jersey to a Haitian family, was a sharp dresser who took pains to stay in shape. He was friendly -- in school and out.

“Marvens doesn’t care if you’re old or young, he’ll hug you,” said his mother, Carmsuze Marthurin. “And he was always waving at everybody in school, even if it was time for class.” He lived with his parents and a younger brother and sister.

Marthurin’s mother said she’d heard a different account of how the tragedy occurred, with her son being the one to attempt to rescue the others. Rutledge said firefighters concentrated on the rescue operation and he could not confirm the sequence of events that led to the youths’ deaths.

Cars lined the street outside the Marthurin residence on Sunday as friends and relatives from the local Haitian community jammed the house. Carmsuze Mathurin said the funeral would be next Saturday.

Bullock loved football and played fullback on the school team. Just the other day he proudly announced he’d grown to be 5-foot-7 and 136 pounds, said his mother, Heidi Bullock. She thinks her son was hampered in the water by the clothes he wore.

“He’s a pretty good swimmer,” she said, “but he was wearing the heaviest clothes he could wear that day. He was really weighted down.”

His sister, Morgan, a freshman at Florida State University, attended the vigil beside the lake and was moved by the size of the crowd.

"Jacob knew all these people," she said. "He made friends all the time."

His father, Jay Bullock, said he heard helicopters Saturday afternoon, and then got a call from Paul’s family saying there was trouble at the lake. He said he hustled down and had to identify his son’s body as they laid it on the stretcher.

“We went fishing in that lake a few times,” he said. “I never thought that’s where he’d end up.”

-- Larry Hartstein contributed to this report.