{"id":6758,"date":"2010-04-13T23:18:09","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T03:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=6758"},"modified":"2010-04-13T23:18:09","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T03:18:09","slug":"some-thoughts-about-the-drowning-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/13\/some-thoughts-about-the-drowning-incident\/","title":{"rendered":"Some thoughts about the drowning incident&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By now, everybody&#8217;s heard of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.godanriver.com\/gdr\/news\/local\/danville_news\/article\/recovery_efforts_to_resume_wednesday\/20054\/\" target=\"_blank\">tragic story of the drowning incident involving a 5-year old boy at Danville&#8217;s Dan Daniel Park<\/a>. Here&#8217;s some thoughts about the incident&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On Star News, we started the coverage of this story Tuesday at 4PM with a &#8220;Breaking News&#8221; update. This was two hours after the incident happened and details were sketchy and hard to come by. We kept up as much as we could, but it was hard not knowing what was going on.<\/li>\n<li>As soon as I heard the details, I knew (but didn&#8217;t want to think) that the rescuers were fighting a clock that didn&#8217;t have much time on it. The fast-moving current and cold water didn&#8217;t bode well for a adult in excellent shape, not to mention a five-year old boy.<\/li>\n<li>Then &amp; now, there are always a few people who want to assign some blame to tragic accidents like this. Then &amp; now, it&#8217;s not the time for it. I don&#8217;t honestly know if there&#8217;s ever going to be a time for it.<\/li>\n<li>As I said tonight, I believe this incident hits home with almost everybody. If you don&#8217;t have (or had) a five-year old in your own family, odds are that you have one in your extended family. I came home after the first night and went straight to bed&#8230; and didn&#8217;t sleep well.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m going to say this and I want it to be perfectly clear. The brave people who have assisted on the rescue\/recovery incident have done the best that they could possibly do, and then have gone over and beyond the call of duty. With emotions running high, I know that there are people that have insinuated otherwise. Here&#8217;s the nicest thing that I can say about it. They&#8217;re full of shit. The authorities know that safety has to come first in an operation like this and you have to fall back and regroup at times when conditions become dangerous. I do not want to see another serious injury or death come out of this incident, and the rescuers know that&#8217;s the correct policy to have.<\/li>\n<li>I give high marks to the staff of the Danville Register &amp; Bee for their coverage of the event. I&#8217;ve been critical of Matt Tomsic&#8217;s writing before but have no problem commending him for a job well done during this. In fact, all local media have ethically &amp; tastefully covered this incident without turning it into a circus.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is the first major story that I&#8217;ve covered as a member of the &#8220;conventional media&#8221;, and it&#8217;s been a sobering experience. I&#8217;ve tried to keep a professional attitude while reporting the story and appearing on-camera, but it hasn&#8217;t been easy. Screw that. It&#8217;s been hard as hell to relay the information. We try to keep SouthsideCentral light-hearted even under the worst of circumstances. This is the worst of circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s hard, folks. Damned hard. Thanks for reading this.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By now, everybody&#8217;s heard of the tragic story of the drowning incident involving a 5-year old boy at Danville&#8217;s Dan Daniel Park. Here&#8217;s some thoughts about the incident&#8230;<\/p>\n<p> [&#8230;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[58,20,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-newscentral","category-opinioncentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1L0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4915,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/03\/drowning-near-long-island-park-on-saturday\/","url_meta":{"origin":6758,"position":0},"title":"Drowning near Long Island Park on Saturday","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Campbell and Halifax County law enforcement are jointly working this incident. Saturday morning, the Halifax County Sheriff's Dept. got a call from Earnest Childress of 7014 Stage Coach Rd. in the Nathalie area. He reported that his son-in-law had left Friday morning and had not been heard from since. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Halifax County&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Halifax County","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/halifax-county\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13862,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/08\/31\/breaking-industrial-fatality-at-goodyear\/","url_meta":{"origin":6758,"position":1},"title":"UPDATED: BREAKING: Industrial Fatality at Goodyear","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 31, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"UPDATE #1: We've added Goodyear's official statement to the article. Tragic news coming from Danville's Goodyear plant tonight... SouthsideCentral has confirmed that a worker was killed at Danville's Goodyear plant tonight in an industrial accident. Multiple\u00a0sources has confirmed that the accident happened in the calendar process area, where tread wires\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Breaking News&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Breaking News","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/breaking-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4924,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/04\/shooting-in-danvilles-piney-forest-shopping-center\/","url_meta":{"origin":6758,"position":2},"title":"Shooting in Danville&#8217;s Piney Forest Shopping Center","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"As of now there was nobody injured in the incident. Police were called to Piney Forest Shopping Center around 4:20 PM with reports of a person getting out of one vehicle and shooting at another vehicle. Both vehicles drove off and at this time nobody is known to be injured.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Breaking News&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Breaking News","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/breaking-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6128,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/06\/some-thoughts-about-the-danville-police-shooting\/","url_meta":{"origin":6758,"position":3},"title":"Some thoughts about the Danville police shooting.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"By now, you've heard that a Danville police officer shot & killed a suspect who pointed a gun at him. Let's talk about it. Man dies following officer-involved shooting in Danville Lesson that should be learned but probably won't be: Point a gun at a police officer and you will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6011,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/20\/danville-polices-dog-shooting-case-back-in-the-news\/","url_meta":{"origin":6758,"position":4},"title":"Danville Police&#8217;s dog shooting case back in the news&#8230;","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"December 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"And in his letter, former chief Neal Morris takes some shots of his own at Danville Police Chief Philip Broadfoot. Hoo boy. Police chief owes officer an apology; Retired chief takes Broadfoot to task We need a Big Board to look at all of the issues that this letter raises...\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7165,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/07\/25\/eden-man-drowns-in-mayo-river\/","url_meta":{"origin":6758,"position":5},"title":"Eden man drowns in Mayo River","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We've got a tragic story from Rockingham County (NC). A 42-year old Eden man drowned while helping to save his sons from an undercurrent in the Mayo River on Saturday evening. Glenn Elmer Hampton (42) drowned in the Anglin Mill Loop area of the Mayo River at 6:45 PM on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;NewsCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"NewsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6758\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}