ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 23, 1996 TAG: 9607230074
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BUCHANAN
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
Ed Bowden swiped at his brother with a tree branch, trying desperately to break him free of the unseen 480 volts that coursed through him.
The brawny 15-year-old Eric Bowden was helpless, swimming in electricity.
Anyone who touched Eric became part of the circuit. The charge poured from an unseen source into the James River, through Eric and into them.
Eric Bowden had come to Roanoke from Green Bay, Wis., with his family to see his brother who was just released from duty in the U.S. Marines.
The brothers and a few friends had headed out to Botetourt County Sunday morning for a leisurely fishing trip. Eric was making his way across some rocks when he slipped into a mysteriously electrified pool near the bank.
"It must have been 15 minutes before we could get him out of that hole," said Ed Bowden's roommate, Brian Burke, 23.
"It's just hard, standing on a bank watching him die," he said. "I mean, if he were drowning, you could go in and save him; but if you go after him in that pool, you die, too."
Burke found a rubber hose that his companions passed around Bowden's midsection to pull him free. Even then, Bowden's feet continued to slip back into the charged water, shocking his rescuers. Finally, Burke said, Ed Bowden risked a serious jolt and grabbed his brother by the hair to get him out.
Eric Bowden was pronounced dead a short time later at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
Monday, investigators from the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration were focusing on a rarely used water pump owned by Global Stone James River, formerly James River Limestone Co.
Conrad Spangler, division director for the state mining office in Charlottesville, said the investigation could take two weeks.
The investigation has yet to determine how that pool in the river got to be so deadly.
John Michener, vice president and general manager for Global Stone in Buchanan, said the pump has not been used for several months and sits some 20 feet from the water. He said no part of the pump or the power cable leading to it was in the water when Eric Bowden died. He expressed "deep regret" about the incident.
The company's property is marked by "no trespassing" signs, but a Global Stone security guard gave the fishing party permission to cut across it to land not owned by the company, Michener said.
Burke said he noticed a problem at the pump a few weeks ago.
That spot, about a mile off Virginia 43 by the quarry plant, is one of Burke's favorites to fish. He and his fishing buddies routinely park their car on 43, get permission from the security guard to let them head down to the river, and fish their way back upstream to their car.
A few weeks ago, Burke went digging for bait along the bank.
He said he heard an intermittent buzzing sound that seemed to be coming from the pump, but didn't realize what it was until his foot slipped into that same pool Eric Bowden died in. A jolt ran up his right leg.
"I thought I was bit by a snake at first," he said. He fell back in the water and was carried downstream, out of the field of electricity.
When he and his friends left the property, they looked for the security guard to tell him about the electricity, but couldn't find him, Burke said.
He's been back to that spot to fish twice since then, but he didn't hear the buzzing sound so he figured it wasn't a problem anymore.
Sunday, there was no buzzing sound, but Burke noticed a dead groundhog near the pump and warned his buddies to stay clear of the area.
Everyone did until the group started to head up river.
Burke thinks Eric Bowden must have been trying to make his way over to his brother by stepping on rocks when he slipped.
"We were just laughing the other night about when that happened to me," Burke said. "But it ain't too funny now."
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB