The family of Leslie R. Jackson, 50, of Magnolia, said the drowning victim was a good swimmer.
In an earlier report, the Pike County Emergency Management Agency said Jackson apparently went too far into the Bogue Chitto River Thursday and couldn’t swim.
But Jackson’s sister, Loretta Jackson, said her brother learned how to swim after he learned how to walk.
“He was an excellent swimmer. Every brother I have can swim. I can’t, but they can,” she said.
Jackson said that her brother once dove into the Mississippi River to save his fishing reel.
She said the family still doesn’t know the exact cause of Jackson’s death.
“We hadn’t gotten anything back from the coroner. We don’t know if he died from something else,” she said.
Cynthia Cockerham, who was at the river Thursday, said she and her family were fishing when Jackson and his family arrived under the Holmesville bridge.
She said Jackson was sitting with two small children when he decided to get into the water.
Cockerham said Jackson took off his leg brace and put down his crutch and got in. She said he swam west, away from a sand back and toward a tree line.
She said Jackson made it to the concrete wall on the other side of where they were and sat on a log.
“He sat on a log a minute or two, and then he swam a little further,” Cockerham said.
She said Jackson appeared to be near a boat ramp.
“He made a loud gasping and started dog paddling,” she said, “I told him, ‘Les, get out the water. You breathing all hard and gasping for air, get out of the water.’ ”
But Cockerham said Jackson stayed in and went under again twice.
She said her daughter, Aunjuanique Miller, called to him a second time, telling him to get out the water.
“My daughter told him, ‘Les, you heard my mama, get out of the water,’ and he turned to her and said, ‘Baby, I got it,’ ” she said.
Cockerham said Jackson went under a third time and didn’t come back up.
She said at first she thought Jackson was joking, but when he didn’t respond she knew something was wrong.
Cockerham said when Jackson’s sister, LaDonna Jackson, and her boyfriend Tory Barnes returned from a nearby store, she told them what happened.
She said Barnes jumped in the water and tried to save Jackson but almost went under himself.
“I jumped in to get him and he said ‘I can get him,’ so he jumped in again and almost went under again,” Cockerham said.
She said she called 911 and the Pike County Sheriff’s Department responded.
She said one of the deputies wanted to go into the river to search for Jackson, but another officer told him not to.
Cockerham said the deputy stripped out of his uniform and went in anyway, but was unsuccessful.
She said she heard the deputies say the water in the area was 12-14 feet deep.
Cockerham said Pike County Emergency Management Agency rescuers used long poles that look like canes to pull Jackson’s body out of the water.
She believes Jackson may have suffered a heart attack while in the water.
“He was breathing like he was having a heart attack,” she said.
Jackson’s sister said the family is also puzzled.
“They (the family) said he was swimming well. We don’t know what happened,” she said, “He didn’t just jump in the water and drown, he had been in there already.”
She said Jackson was a handyman and did have some medical problems. She doesn’t think his stomach issues played a part in her brother’s death.
Jackson said she’s having a hard time coming to grips with her brother’s death.
“I really can’t understand, I can’t wrap my head around it. I thought it would be from something else, but not from drowning,” she said.
She said her brother died doing something that he loved.
Jackson is survived by his two children, Leslie and Antonio Hodges; and his wife, Tammy Hodges.
“Hate that had to happen to him. He was a sweet man, he would anything to help anybody,” Cockerham said.
Peoples Undertaking Co. of McComb is in charge of funeral arrangements, which were incomplete this weekend.
