Lisa Phillips’ son was playing with his two best friends — young brothers who lived nearby — along the Little Thompson River when he went running home for help.
Daniel Foreman, 7, and Paul Foreman, 10, had fallen into the strong currents, he screamed to her on Sunday afternoon. Down below, Phillips saw the boys’ father struggling to keep the pair above the frigid river’s surface and move them ashore.
Phillips said she jumped in as well, but by the time she reached the boys, it was clearly too late. Firefighters arrived soon after and began CPR.
“They tried everything,” she told The Denver Post on Monday. “There was nothing they could do.”
The Larimer County coroner’s office said the two boys drowned after being swept into the Little Thompson in the small community of Pinewood Springs. Their deaths have been ruled an accident.
Phillips said Daniel and Paul were very close to each other and loved Legos, video games and their pet rabbit.
“It’s shocking and devastating,” she said. “My son lost his best friends right in front of him.”
It remained a mystery Monday how the two boys fell into the river while their father’s back was turned and while playing in an area they knew well. Phillips said the boys were battling with water guns but not being careless around the Little Thompson, with its well-documented dangers.
David Moore, spokesman for the county sheriff’s office, which is investigating the case, said an update Monday wasn’t available.
Area residents said the boys were near a popular, high-risk swimming spot in the river called “the tubs” when they got caught in the swift flow.
The tubs features granite cliffs that form a waterfall and gushing currents that cut a series of deep pools where people swim. The area is open only to community members and is heavily marked with signs barring outsiders.
“There were not lots of witnesses,” said Andrew Lucas, assistant chief of the Pinewood Springs Fire Protection District, who responded to the scene. “It was lightly populated, and the calls came in once there was realization the boys were in the river and being swept downstream. Neighbors in the area were contacted by a witness or two who asked them to call 911.”
The first report came in to emergency dispatchers about 12:20 p.m. Phillips said she made that call.
Lucas said the initial response was chaotic because of spotty cellphone reception and the dearth of information initially provided to first responders.
Emergency dispatch archives on Broadcastify.com show first responders needed help being directed to the scene. Some apparently came from as far as Longmont, about 20 miles away.
Crews initially thought they were responding to a swift-water rescue situation, the archives indicate.
“It appears there is somebody out of the water and they are doing CPR on them!” a Pinewood Springs firefighter called into his radio with a shaken voice.
The boys were unresponsive when first responders reached them. Efforts to resuscitate Daniel and Paul were unsuccessful.
“There’s some speculation about whether one went in first and then the other,” Lucas said. “We don’t really know.”
Denver7 reported the boys’ grandfather, Paul Joseph Foreman, told the station that Daniel and Paul’s father had trouble getting out of the water himself after jumping in to rescue his children.
A neighbor said he saw the father huddled on the Little Thompson’s banks, draped in what appeared to be a blanket, as emergency crews worked around him.
The brothers’ home was a few hundred yards from where they were found in the river, neighbors said.
The Little Thompson was running strong Sunday when the boys fell in but not nearly at its peak snowmelt runoff strength.
There have been accidents at the tubs in the past, and signs warn visitors of dangerous conditions.
Pinewood Springs, between Lyons and Estes Park on U.S. 36, is trying to come to grips with the Mother’s Day tragedy. Friends and neighbors were gathering Monday night at the firehouse.
“There’s lots of efforts to try to deal with the ramifications for not only the family, but also the community and the first responders involved,” Lucas said.
A GoFundMe account — gofundme.com/Foremanfamily — has been created to help the boys’ family with funeral expenses and other costs.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or @JesseAPaul
Staff writer Bruce Finley contributed to this report.
