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Heroic efforts fail to save girl By MARK FREEMAN ASHLAND - With a few sunning parents around, a handful of anglers and more than a half-dozen kids splashing in thigh-deep water on a long sandbar, Sunday had the sights and sensations of a perfect afternoon at Emigrant Lake for Angela Carrico and Nelson LaFazio. "There were all these kids out there, my kid was out there, and there were a few adults around and the water was so shallow," said Carrico, 34. "It didn't look dangerous. Not at all. Not at all." But the calm collapsed when a woman came to Carrico, handed her a cellular telephone and asked her to call for help; a little girl was missing in the water. Moments later, the wet body of 9-year-old Julia Hernandez lay on shore as Carrico and LaFazio tried in vain to revive her. The Medford girl, who loved math and couldn't wait to start fourth grade at Griffin Creek School, drowned in a 10-foot-deep hole at the edge of the shallow sandbar at the lake's popular Songer Wayside area. Now the Hernandez family is mourning the loss of the eldest of six children who was given life by a baby-delivering firefighter Feb. 6, 1992, and lost it Sunday as paramedics tried to reclaim what a deep-water hole stole. "She was such a great child in life," said her mother, Lori Hernandez. "She always knew what she wanted, and was always happy with what she had. "This is so, so horrible." Julia was pronounced dead at Rogue Valley Medical Center at 5:28 p.m. An hour earlier, everything seemed so calm. Jose and Lori Hernandez took their family to Emigrant Lake for an afternoon of summer fun, and that included playing in the water. All the kids can swim, Lori Hernandez said, but Julia was the weakest of the swimmers and shied away from deep water. Jose Hernandez and another man were along the sandy bar with the older kids, while Lori held to shore with the toddlers. Carrico's 8-year-old daughter, Erica, was playing with the adventurous kids in waters about 2 feet deep. There seemed to be a little commotion among the adults on the sandbar. But the Songer Wayside area was cloaked in "a real eerie quiet," LaFazio said, until the woman approached with the cell phone asking for help. LaFazio, who was perch fishing with Carrico, tossed his hat aside and ran the 75 yards to where the commotion was. An unidentified man was diving into a deep, murky hole next to the sand bar, saying a girl was still in there. LaFazio, a U.S. Army veteran of Desert Storm, dove six times into the hole before he touched Julia's leg and hoisted her out, he said. Carrico and LaFazio administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation for about six minutes, Carrico said, before firefighters arrived. "She was just in there too long," LaFazio said. Lori Hernandez said her husband saw Julia "pop up and down" as she tried to swim to safety. Jose Hernandez tried to save his daughter, but had to rescue two other young people who were trying to help Julia, Lori Hernandez said. "They just went too far," Lori Hernandez said, "and got to where it drops." 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.