Teen remembered for always doing right thing
19-year-old drowned while saving 2 cousins
J’Varius Bankhead was known for his energy and for always doing the right thing.
So it did not surprise his grief-stricken family that the 19-year-old would jump into Lake Michigan to save two young cousins.
“He was always positive, always smiling, just an uplifting person,” his father, Derrick Roberson, said Monday.
Like many families who gravitated toward the lakefront during Saturday’s hot weather, a group of 15 to 20 people gathered to barbecue, play in the water and hang out together at McKinley Beach. Bankhead lived in Durant, Mississippi, but enjoyed spending his
summers in Milwaukee with his father and other family members.
Parents took shifts watching the little ones on the beach and water while others grilled food and set up a picnic area.
“He was playing with my 6-year-old daughter,” said Roberson. “I don’t know what happened. Two of his cousins said to me ‘J’Varius didn’t come up.’”
Family members said Bankhead realized two young cousins were in trouble and was able to push them to shore, but couldn’t save himself. He could swim and was an athlete at his high school — he was scheduled to start his senior year soon — where he participated on the track and football teams.
Roberson ran to the area of the beach where his son was last seen around 8:40 p.m. Two men told him the water was not safe. Winds were blowing from off shore on Saturday evening and waves were around 2 feet, according to the National Weather Service.
“A guy was saying ‘He’s gone, the current is too strong.’ I said ‘Where did he go?’ I saw the water was deep there and I had no buoyancy device,” Roberson said. “The man said ‘Don’t do it, the current is too strong.’”
Roberson said he got an inflatable raft, which he tied to his arm, but before he could jump in, a sheriff ’s deputy told him the dive team was on the scene. Family members waited anxiously for any sign of Bankhead until someone saw his body wash ashore. Roberson’s heart sank.
“By the grace of God, I guess, they started dragging it and somebody said, ‘Here, what’s that?’ I had a lot of tears in my eyes. I remember the shirt he was wearing,” said Roberson.
Bankhead’s family pulled out his body and turned it over to begin CPR but emergency response officials took over, frantically trying to save his life. They continued CPR in the ambulance on the way to a hospital and after he arrived, but Bankhead was pronounced dead at 10:02 p.m. Saturday, according to the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s office.
Bankhead was the 20th person to drown in Lake Michigan this year; a 14-year-old boy drowned the next day near Grand Haven, Michigan, according to Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project statistics. Authorities warned earlier this summer about the potential for an increase in drownings on the Great Lakes because of historic high water levels and many community pools closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Roberson is trying to raise money to send his son’s body back to Mississippi for burial, but he also wants a viewing in Milwaukee so his family members here can say good-bye.
“He was a good kid. He just loved Wisconsin. I don’t know exactly what he wanted to do with his life, he wanted to get his diploma first,” Roberson said. “Whatever he did it would have been here.”