Boy Scout Troop Responds to Fellow Scout's Drowning

Posted: Jul 13, 2012 7:44 PM by KATC
Updated: Jul 13, 2012 7:45 PM

A Breaux Bridge father and son die when their Tennessee hiking trip takes a tragic turn. Dwight Cope and his 15 old son Dagan drowned last week while hiking the Appalachian Trail in Tennesse...among 5 people who've drowned in as many days in that region. Troop 55 is learning to move on after losing one of their own last week. Lafayette's Healing House has stepped in to help the troops deal with the loss of one of their life scouts.

Clint Cormier, Troop 55's leader, says, "They said that it could happen to any one of us. The troop sat down and had a really good talk about how you deal with a situation like this. How in death, deal with a close community, especially the boy scouts, we're a community. We're very very close. "

Clint Cormier and his troops are proud to have called Dagan a member of Troop 55.

"Dagan was a shy boy, but he was always in the trenches with us. He's always enjoyed the hugh adventure life, hiking, kayaking, canoeing, climbing rocks. He was very active in scouting, he loved scouting. He loved it very much," Cormier said.

Colin Picard, a Troop 55 member says, "As soon as we got to know him, he came out of his shell. I guess scouting helped him out a lot."

Zack Breaud, a Troop 55 member says, "It's going to be very hard to replace him, if we can replace him at all. Not many people have the love of life like he did. He really enjoyed life and having him around, because he would help us with anything we needed. We could look up to him as a role model and we could look up to him whenever we needed. "

If you would like to help the family of the Cope family with expenses and funeral costs, a bank account has been set up in the father and son's name:

Midsouth Bank Breaux Bridge
337-332-2166
Account Name-Benefit account for Dwight and Dagan Cope
Account # 1236393