Blue ribbons serve as reminders

• By SONIA SMITH
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: May 23, 2009

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FALSE RIVER — Blue ribbons wave from docks and trees along False River, a reminder of the three young lives lost in a boating accident in the oxbow lake May 16.

Theresa Doran, one of the organizers of the blue-ribbon campaign, said she hopes boaters who see the ribbons from the water will remember the accident and exercise caution on the lake.

Around 50 people attended the group’s memorial service at Morrison Parkway in New Roads Saturday evening at dusk to remember Christopher W. Austin, 20; Brian Doherty, 21; and Sterling Forbes, 22, who drowned May 16 after another boat struck theirs.

The four people on the second boat survived the crash, while one remains hospitalized in serious condition.

Crews recovered the bodies of the three men Monday, after two days of searching using sonar and divers.

“As a community there are a lot of emotions being felt —there’s a lot of sorrow and a lot of emptiness. This happened in our backyard,” Doran said.

Doran, 45, who lives in Baton Rouge and owns a camp on the lake, said that the ceremony offered the community a place to grieve.

“There were tears and everybody was very thankful to have that time,” she said.

The aim of the ceremony was to remember those who drowned, to recognize the efforts of those who recovered their bodies and to stress boating safety, Doran said.

Kenneth Rowell, who swam out to the crash after it occurred and used sonar from his employer, C&C Technology, to help locate the bodies, also attended the memorial ceremony.

“I did what anybody with my resources would have done,” Rowell said of his contributions to the search and recovery efforts.

Doran said she did not know any of the drowned young men, but that boat’s sole survivor, Brian Lummen, is a friend of her son’s.

Blue ribbons were passed out at the ceremony and are being given away at Pap & Pris Baum’s Flower and Gift Shop in New Roads and at Parrot’s on the Island in Jarreau, Doran said. They are available for purchase at the Winn-Dixie in New Roads.