PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Just one day after 16-year-old Ja'Quon Madaris drowned in the St. Lucie River, a ripple effect of grief is reaching those that knew him.
WPTV reporter Joel Lopez spoke with the teen's mother Wednesday morning, who said they're still grieving and were not ready to talk on camera.
Through our research we learned that Madaris was a student at St. Lucie Acceleration Academies and had just graduated in May.
"Even though he was doing something that he loved to do, it's just tragic that that's the way he went," said Octavia Williams, Madaris' counselor at St Lucie Acceleration Academies. "Out of all the news that I could have gotten yesterday, that was the last thing that I expected to hear."
The academy is an alternative school setting to help students get their diplomas.
"My condolences just go out to his family, it's rough and in this field of work that we do, to lose a kid, it hurts," said Williams. "A lot of the times these kids don't realize how much we actually do care about them so when something like this happens it hurts."
Williams describes Madaris as having a heart of gold, who was always helpful, friendly and outgoing.
Acceleration Academies issued the following statement:
"The staff of St. Lucie Acceleration Academies would like to extend our deepest condolences to Ja'quon's family, friends, and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time. Our thoughts and prayers are with them as they navigate through their loss. Ja'quon was a steadfast presence at St. Lucie Acceleration Academies and he had a lasting impact on all of those around him. In light of this tragedy, we want to emphasize that we will have counselors onsite next week who are available to provide support and guidance to our students and staff members during this time."
Williams said when he met Madaris, the teen had set a goal to get his high school diploma early, and he did.
"He just knew he wanted to be great, and he knew he wanted to place himself in a position to be able to provide for his family, that's all he talked about," said Williams.
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It's a goal he was hoping to accomplish through his online fishing channel.
"For me, it tells me how much he loves his family, how much he loves other people," said Daniel Toback, the man behind the St. Lucie County Scanner page on Facebook.
Toback shared a post where hundreds of people have shown an overwhelming amount of support.
Has the family been seeing some of the support that you've seen online?
"They have, they have absolutely. They have seen everything you all are posting, all the kind comments," said Toback.
He said back in June he received a Facebook message from Madaris asking for advice on his channel after the death of his 9-year-old niece.
"He loved fishing, he talked a lot about how he wanted to grow that channel to eventually be full time and support his family," said Toback. "He mentioned losing that person and it was heartbreaking for him and he was trying to help his family recover from that."
"That's why he wanted to raise some money?" asked Lopez.
"Absolutely, for that and also helping his parents and meeting bills and things like that," said Toback.
Toback said through members of the group, they are working with a local bank to create an account where the community can donate money to help with whatever needs the family may have.
"We really want to be able to give them some resources they can fully really just focus on, you know, recovering from this, trying to come together and worry about the important stuff," said Toback.
The family expects Ja'Quon's funeral to cost tens of thousands of dollars, and the family has set up this GoFundMe page to help fundraise money.
Port St. Lucie police told WPTV that so far this year they've had a total of two open-water calls, which includes yesterday's drowning. They said the other was a toddler that drowned in a pond in February.
With other recent drownings, it has us wondering what's in place to keep people safe when they're in the water in areas like the St. Lucie River.
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"I think you always have to focus on continuous improvements, right? Ways to get better," said Chief of Police Richard Del Toro. "A lot of people fish down there even though it's not really an area for fishing but look, Florida is what it is, it's a very recreational thing that people do all the time."
PSLPD said the teens yesterday got to the river after going over the north side of the St Lucie Bridge and down to the water. When we drove by we did see fencing along the bridge as well as no trespassing signs.
So could more signage help prevent future drownings?
"I don't think signage is really the answer here, cause there's so many different waterways, mileage, it's impossible to cover that with so much signage," said Del Toro. "I think the most important thing is having the conversation with people, young people, especially kids, when they're younger, talking to them about the dangers of water, making sure people are getting swim lessons if they can."
Near where the teen drowned is the also the Riverwalk Boardwalk. Currently there's construction that appears to be connecting the boardwalk form the north side of the bridge to the south end.
There are a few visible signs that say no swimming and other more faded ones about marine life, but no rescue equipment like flotation devices.
"Is that something that could be considered to put some of these in place?" asked Lopez.
"The Riverwalk is a premier destination in the city of Port St Lucie so again we're always going to be looking at ways to focus on continuous improvement so that's a conversation we can definitely have with our parks department and with the city to look at," said Del Toro. "We don't have all the ideas so anytime people bring ideas to us we're definitely going to take them into consideration."
