The icy waters of a small lake north of New York City claimed the life of a Salisbury businesswoman’s son Saturday as he tried to save a dog from drowning.
Stephen Wilcox, 49, who grew up in Iredell County on U.S. 64 just west of Cleveland, and a friend with whom he shared a lakeside home both drowned. Who went first and who lost his life trying to rescue the other is unknown, but neither lived despite efforts of rescuers and divers.
But the dog they were trying to save managed to get out on his own and survived.
Wilcox is the son of Edie Purdy-Horne, owner of Travel Time of Salisbury, a travel agency at 1349 W. Innes St. She expected to return to her home near Cleveland following funeral services in New York at 10 this morning.
A second service will take place at Fifth Creek Presbyterian Church in Cool Springs, but arrangements are incomplete.
Purdy-Horn has been in Gardiner, N.Y., where the drownings occurred since she received a call about her son’s death Saturday night, but she is still unclear about details of the tragic drownings which made headlines in three newspapers in the beautiful lakeside community 60 miles north of the city.
The two men — Wilcox, a freelance graphic artist and writer of New York’s “Not for Tourists” travel guide for business people, and Robert Guglielmo, 54, a psychologist — had shared a New York apartment and the home at the lake for years.
They were preparing a birthday dinner party in honor of their year-old puppy, Beau, and expecting friends who breed dogs when a neighbor called shortly before 2 p.m. to say that two of their three golden retrievers were on the frozen lake.
“And one of them,” Purdy-Horn told the Post in a telephone interview, “jumped up and ran out real quick to the lake edge and walked out on to the ice to get the dog.”
But he and one of the dogs fell through.
The other man saw what happened, grabbed a green rowboat and pulled it onto the ice. Newspaper reports say he then abandoned the boat and also dove into the water to rescue his friend.
Deputy Scott Weaver, who is also a diver, got the emergency call, put on his diving gear in the car while another deputy drove to the lake and pulled both men from the water.
He said the bottom of the lake was flat, and he found the men quickly. He pulled them up — one after the other — within four minutes of diving in.
Purdy-Horn’s son was pronounced dead at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie after being flown there by helicopter.
Guglielmo was revived on the shore and was alive for a short time after being flown to a hospital in Valhalla. But he died at 5:35 p.m.
The water, Weaver estimated, was 32 degrees, but the air temperature during an unseasonably warm afternoon was above 50.
“It was absolutely senseless,” Purdy-Horn said, still deeply shocked by her son’s death. She got the news Saturday night about 9 from her daughter, Diane Wilcox Strutts, of Knoxville, Tenn.
“The New York state police had called Diane,” Purdy-Horn said. She and her husband had been out and had a message on their answering machine when they got home. The police had found her name in Steve’s billfold in his pants pocket.
Word spread quickly to Wilcox’s brothers, Roy of Knoxville, Tenn., and Gary of Cool Springs, and their families attended this morning’s funeral at Copeland Funeral Home at New Paltz, N.Y.
Bunch Funeral Home in Statesville will handle local arrangements.
The dogs, Purdy-Horn says, were also honored at a birthday party in September.
The two adult golden retrievers had sired 20 puppies, and her son and his friend were entertaining the people who had those puppies.
“Everybody came from the city,” Purdy-Horn said, “and they took pictures and had a big joyous occasion.”
When the guests left, she said, “Steve, who had just gotten to where he was feeling really good after three heart valve replacements, stayed to clean up the mess.”
He was going into New York on Sept. 11, about 9 a.m., when he got a call about the first terrorist attack, his mother said.
“A friend said, ‘Steve, don’t come back into the city,’ ” she said, “and he was at the lake for three weeks before he could get back to his apartment at 331 Lexington Ave.”
About 10 couples — many of them the same friends who breed dogs, including a Russian couple who had been at the earlier dog event — began arriving about 7 p.m. Saturday after the drowning, Purdy-Horn said.
“One by one they arrived,” Purdy-Horn said. “When they heard what had happened, they were hysterical. They could not believe it.”
Neither can she.
But the dogs — Giuseppe, Woody and Beau — are all right. All three went home with the Russian couple.
Contact Rose Post at 704-797-4251 or rpost@salisburypost.com
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