NEW ORLEANS — Nothing was out of the ordinary as Christopher Boudreaux and his 6-year-old step-grandson waded into the shallow water off of the Elmer’s Island Wildlife Refuge on Grand Isle for swimming lessons on Wednesday.
But without warning, the current kicked up, and Zane Griffin began to drift further out.
Boudreaux rushed to his grandson and threw the boy toward the shore where his family grabbed him. They watched in horror at what happened next.
“The undercurrent grabbed him and pulled him under and held him,” Derrick Griffin recalled Friday.
Griffin tried to run and swim toward Boudreaux, 43, of Galliano.
“He was floating upside down at this point,” Griffin said of his step-father. “I was able to get about 10 feet from him and the current on top the water was rolling and I couldn’t go no more. I knew if I kept trying it would be me, too.”
He made the decision to race back to the shore to grab his cellphone to call 911.
Boudreaux became the sixth person to drown off of the island in as many weeks.
Grand Isle officials have for now closed one stretch of beach where four of the drownings happened. Among the victims were two boys and a man from Houma who tried to save them.
Police Chief Laine Landry said discussions are now underway about making the closure permanent.
“We’ve always had drownings. But this year, it seems there are larger numbers of people, maybe due to COVID-19,” Landry told The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate.
Landry said he wonders if abnormal tides and man-made structures may be intensifying dangerous water currents.
Griffin said authorities responded within minutes of his call. Their efforts proved fruitless.
Boudreaux’s body was recovered about 45 minutes later, 500 feet from where his family last saw him.
Griffin said Boudreaux worked offshore on crew boats and supply ships since he was 18 years old and described him as a strong swimmer.
“Not even two months ago he had just went to redo a training session for water survival,” Griffin said. “Even the most advanced training you can get or the best swimmer in the world, when that current’s rolling like it started rolling, you can’t break it.”
Griffin believes Boudreaux overexerted himself trying to save his grandson.
“That’s the only child I have. Period,” Griffin said. “He’s my life. And if something were to happen to him I don’t know what I’d do to be honest. Pretty sure they’d have to end up institutionalizing me because I’d never be right again.”
Sharmyn Manry had been with Boudreaux for almost a decade. She said saving her grandson and sacrificing himself didn’t surprise her.
“He chose (to save) Zane,” Manry said.
His family said they will miss Boudreaux but they won’t mourn him. Instead, Manry said, they’ll celebrate his life and remember how he made them feel.
“He wrote in the sand before all this went sideways that he loved me. I know I was loved. I have no regrets for the times I had with him, good, bad or the other,” she said. He might be gone, but I have him. He’s with me. He’s with my family. We all have memories of him. And as long as we have memories of him he’ll never be gone.”
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