Aiden Alan Bulkley - Online Memorial Website

On 8-8-14, my father, Ronald Paul LaRue, my stepmother, Lil, and my 2 older children, Joshua (age 11) and Aiden (age 5) left our rental house early in the morning to go fishing in Bucksport, Maine during high tide. They had been gone a few hours, and I was at the rental house putting my youngest son down for his nap (Paul who was 19 months old). I received a call from my stepmother (which had sounded like she was horsing around with the kids because of all the commotion that I could hear in the background) but then I realized she was screaming at me, "Britt, they are under the water! They can't find your dad! You need to come quick! They can't find your dad! Hurry!" My immediate response was, "Mom, where are my kids?!" She said, "Josh is standing next to me." I said, "Mom, Mom, what about Aiden?!" She said, "He is in the water, they are trying to get them out, HURRY!!" I ran up the stairs of the rental house, got Paul out of bed, slipped on my sandals and ran out the door. Forgot the diaper bag or to lock the house, which obviously didn't matter at that point. I am on the phone with my husband, Kenneth Ferara, as I am screaming and crying and trying to get to where I think they are (as I didn't get a location from my mom). As I go over the bridge into Bucksport. I see a lot of emergency vehicles and tons of people looking down the river bank. They had just pulled my son out of the water and were working on him. I was freaking out, they wouldn't let me go down to him, as I would just be in the way anyway. My oldest son Josh, came up to me and was explaining to me what had happened as he saw the whole incident. He explained that he and Aiden were sitting on the floating dock with their feet in the water. Aiden went to pull his feet out of the water to put them flat on the dock, so he could turn to get up. As he put his feet flat and he turned, the wind and current moved the dock and Aiden fell in. Josh reached down to grab Aiden's hand but the current was already taking Aiden down stream. My stepmother yelled at my dad (Ron), who ran over and jumped right in to save his grandson, without hesitation. My father got a grip on Aiden and was popping his out of the water, but in the process the current was pulling my dad under. Within a few minutes, my dad was no longer coming out of the water and Aiden was floating on the surface. That is when I arrived, as they had just pulled Aiden from the water. They worked on Aiden for approximately 20 minutes by the river, as they brought him up the bank, they were still performing CPR and walking him to the ambulance. They worked on him the entire way to Eastern Maine Medical Center, in Bangor, Maine (which, ironically, was where he was born), another approximately 25-30 minutes. They worked on him a total of 1.5 to 1.75 hours when they had to make the decision to pronounce him dead. I arrived shortly after that to the hospital. My 2 other children and I, ran into the hospital, went to the front desk, told them who we were and who I was looking for, the lady said "let me go get them to talk to you" and my heart sank. I was ushered into a room with many doctors and medical staff where they told me that Aiden had passed away. They just couldn't revive him. In the mean time, my stepmother was still by the river bank waiting for them to find my dad. After I said goodbye to my sweet angel at the hospital, an officer of the Maine Marine Patrol escorted me out and would escort me home. But as we walked to my truck, he got the call that they had just found my father's body. He too passed away. They found him nearly 4 hours later, 200 yards away.