Document text
Community helps out with drowned girl's funeral costs By MARK FREEMAN A 9-year-old drowning victim was laid to rest Thursday afternoon in a ceremony during which the local community joined the girl's family in mourning. A Medford mortuary service donated a funeral and burial services for Julia Hernandez, who drowned when she stepped off a shallow sandbar and into a murky hole while playing with other children Sunday afternoon in Emigrant Lake. Others have donated flower bouquets, meals and even part of the cost of the cream-colored satin dress which Julia wore when she was buried Thursday at Memory Gardens park in Medford. "There has been a lot of really good community support for them," said Heather Bergevin, a friend of the Hernandez family. "This is a family that couldn't have afforded any of this, so it's been a real blessing." Julia was wading in thigh-deep water with several children Sunday afternoon when she fell into a 10-foot-deep hole at Songer Wayside, a popular fishing and swimming area at Emigrant Lake's southern end. The murky summer water hid the hole from view. Several people, including her father, Jose, tried to find Julia before a Medford man discovered her and carried her lifeless body to shore. Though she was only in the water an estimated seven minutes, cardiopulmonary resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful and she was pronounced dead about 90 minutes later at Rogue Valley Medical Center in Medford. The oldest of six children, Julia was born at home to Jose and Lori Hernandez and delivered by emergency-medical technicians in Manzanita, near Astoria, in 1992. A math and science buff, Julia was about to enter the fourth grade at Griffin Creek Elementary. When the family contacted Conger-Morris Funeral Directors about Julia's burial, the company donated a service and burial package worth about $6,000, said Bob Neff, who is area manager of a consortium that includes Conger-Morris and Memory Gardens. The company has donated these services to several low-income families following child deaths, Neff said. Conger-Morris asks that the family pay the cost of a replacement casket - in this case, about $100 - that can be kept on hand for the next mourning family, he said. "When you have a tragedy like this, you have to pull together and help these people," Neff said. "They don't need the burden of a big funeral bill and a big cemetery bill." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.