Katrina's Lives Lost:	David Dubuc, 1961-2005
Submitted By: 		N.O.V.A December 2005
Source:			Times Picayune 11-30-2005

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A priest, after recently hearing several stories about the partying antics
of David Dubuc, was moved to remark: "I kind of wish I could have heard his
confession."

He may not have always been the life of the party, his friends and relatives
say, but parties were the spice of Dubuc's life.

"He was the carefree one of the family," his brother Louis Dubuc said. "He
was always the one putting together parties or hunting trips."

Dubuc juggled two jobs, hitting the streets before sunrise as an independent
dealer for The Times-Picayune, then assisting clients as a sales rep for
Best Business Forms and Supplies Inc.

"He was one of the hardest-working men I've ever known," said Randy Rumney,
a former high school classmate who owns the Metairie company. "He took his
job seriously, but after work he took being your friend seriously, too. We'd
fish, hunt, play cards -- all the things guys do together.

"He did everything but sleep."

Dubuc couldn't help becoming a guy's guy: Five of his six siblings were
brothers. He played football, basketball and baseball at Airline Park and
Mike Miley playgrounds, then participated in football, baseball and track at
Archbishop Rummel High School.

David and wife Gaynell bought a home not far from the Metairie house where
he grew up, and he kept close ties with his old high school classmates. He
watched with pride as his three sons -- Ryan, 17, Adam, 15, and Nicholas, 8
-- played ball at the same Airline Park fields he once roamed. Like their
dad, the older boys also play baseball at Rummel.

"He spent most of his spare time with the kids," older brother Don Dubuc
said. "He traveled all over the state with them when they made All-Star
teams."

"He was always there for his kids, always supportive," said Dennis Welty,
whose son also played baseball on Jefferson Parish playgrounds and at
Rummel. "I never heard anything negative from David about anybody's child."

He was, his brother Don said, "a real 'home' kind of guy." And home in
Metairie, "throwin' the paper," as Louis says, is where he would have been
on Aug. 30 had Katrina not forced Dubuc and members of his wife's family to
evacuate.

They headed east two days before without a destination, calling hotels as
they drove, and ended up at a beach-side condo in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.

Tuesday afternoon, David took a few of the kids outside to burn off some
energy on the beach. His 13-year-old nephew got caught in a riptide; David
told the others to run for help, then jumped in after him.

Family members found the teenager foundering in the water and pulled him to
safety. But there was no sign of Dubuc.

Firefighters and sheriff's deputies attempted a search, but were turned away
by rough surf still churning from Katrina's winds. According to an
Associated Press account, three would-be rescuers got caught in another rip
current and wound up a couple of hundred feet offshore.

Several hours later, a helicopter ambulance spotted Dubuc's body floating
about 1,000 yards east of the condo.

"The only thing anybody can guess is that he got ahold of the boy, and then
he got pulled back out," Don said. "He was always willing to make sacrifices
for the kids. I guess this was the ultimate sacrifice."