Everglades Claims Young Life

A twenty year old man who lived to airboat, fish, and hunt in the Everglades collapsed and died after trudging through the scorching hot sawgrass to find help when his airboat got stuck. Willie Thornton knew the Everglades as a boy growing up in rural West Palm Beach. He spent every daylight hour he could four-wheeling near its banks, airboating with his father, or just horsing around there with his cousins.

But during a swamp outing on Friday, Thornton's favorite spot to relax became the scene of panic and hours later, his death. According to the Broward Sheriff's Office, Willie Thornton and his uncle, Danny Lee Thornton, launched their airboat about 8:30 a.m. Friday from a ramp at the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in Palm Beach County. The pair were about three miles from the ramp, in Broward County, when their airboat got stuck in the mud about 9 a.m. The boat, which Danny Lee Thornton had recently purchased, broke down. ''I guess Willie thought he'd just go try to find some help, go back to the truck and get a battery and see if they could fix the boat,'' Gaydos said.

Danny Lee Thornton, 38, used his cellphone to call relatives and tell them the boat wasn't working. Meanwhile, Willie Thornton slogged his way through at least 12-foot-high sawgrass searching for the road where the truck was parked. Swamp grasses can make it feel 20 degrees hotter. The temperature Friday in West Palm Beach was 90 degrees. ''The people who live out there get lost on a daily basis,'' said Robert Gaydos of South Carolina, who grew up with Danny Lee Thornton. "The levees are adjusted, forming islands one day that disappear the next.''

About 6:40 p.m. Friday, the Thornton family called the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, touching off an extensive search with helicopters and airboats. A Thornton cousin found Willie Thornton just before 11 a.m. Saturday, a fifth of a mile from the access road out of the Everglades, authorities said. He had wandered about two miles from where the airboat got stuck. Rescuers believe he died of exposure. The Broward County Medical Examiner's Office is expected to make a final determination later this week.

The Thornton family spent Father's Day at a home west of West Palm Beach, talking about the hardworking man who died in a place that, for years, had given him great peace. (excerpted from story by Ashley Frantz and Jennifer Lebovich)