Boyfriend fought to save Hancock woman killed in boating crash

Vanessa Mauffray got up early Saturday to go fishing for bait for crab traps. She was hoping to return with a hefty load of crabs to cook on her boyfriend’s birthday Sunday.

Mauffray, 19, never made it back home.

About 10 a.m. Saturday, boater Eugene Butler ploughed broadside into the 15-foot fiberglass boat Mauffray and boyfriend Ryan Necaise were in, according to the state Department of Marine Resources. The crash was near Bordages Brothers’ Marina in Bayou Caddy.

Mauffray, though gravely injured, was able to talk to her boyfriend and stayed alert after she arrived at Memorial Hospital at Gulfport.

“I remember when the (other) boat’s whole hull came over the top of our boat,” said Necaise, Mauffray’s live-in boyfriend of more than two years. “When I rolled over, she was beside me and our boat was starting to sink.”

The couple had fished a couple of hours that morning, and Mauffray was tickled because she’d caught more trout than her man. Afterward, they started checking their crab traps because they had decided to start back to shore.

The couple had been on the water since shortly after 7 a.m. They were just fishing, Necaise said, something they both enjoyed.

They were checking the last of their traps, he said, when another boater, identified by DMR Marine Patrol Chief Keith Davis as Butler, approached. Necaise said the boater was coming pretty fast, but was looking toward his stern.

After the boat hit theirs, Necaise saw his girlfriend lying in the boat beside him and he knew she was in bad shape.

She had a laceration to her arm, an injury to her head and bruising to her body. She kept saying her stomach was hurting, Necaise said.

Necaise asssured her he was going to get the help she needed and fast. The couple’s boat was sinking so Necaise picked his girlfriend up and brought her ashore near where the other boat had landed after it hit them.

He said Mauffray kept saying she was tired, that she wanted to go sleep. Necaise focused on keeping her awake and getting her to a hospital.

“I told her her mom and dad loved her,” he said. “I told she was going to be all right. I told her I loved her and she told me she loved me.”

Necaise kept talking and talking to the woman he loved to keep her awake.

Getting to the ambulance

Once on the bank, Necaise turned to Butler for help and the two pushed Butler’s boat back into the water with Mauffray and Necaise on board. They navigated to a nearby dock to a waiting ambulance.

Necaise said Butler “just kept apologizing to me and said he was having boat problems.”

Necaise stayed focused on keeping Mauffray awake.

“She kept saying her stomach was hurting,” he said.

The family later learned Mauffray had internal injuries, including a lacerated liver and spleen .

DMR investigators detained Necaise and Butler to question them about the collision. Necaise said he didn’t want to leave Mauffray.

“I just thought I was never going to see her again,” he said.

Davis said the results of toxicology tests are pending, which is standard procedures for drivers or boaters involved in crashes that result in death.

When Necaise got to Memorial Hospital a short time later, Mauffray had been rushed into surgery.

Losing a loved one

Mauffray’s mother, Darlene Deschamp, and father got to the hospital shortly before their daughter arrived. Necaise had called them to tell them what had happened.

When her daughter arrived, her mother said didn’t recognize her at first.

“She told me everything that happened,” Deschamp said. “I think she told me because she didn’t want me to blame Ryan. He did everything he could to help her.

“I told her everybody was praying for her. I told her I loved her and the doctor was going to fix her.”

Mauffray’s mother and sister said the doctors initially said she was going to be OK, that she was going to be airlifted to an Alabama hospital and was likely looking at a long bout in physical therapy .

Not long after that, they said, a doctor was telling the family there was nothing else they could do. Mauffray had suffered internal injuries and was losing blood at a rapid pace.

The doctor told the family they had three physicians at one time working to save her, her mother said.

In the end, Mauffray was on a ventilator. She was no longer alert, but her family was able to spend time with her before she died.

Her mother said she used her hand to try to trace every inch of her daughter’s face.

“I kept rubbing her nose,” her mother said. “I didn’t want to forget anything.”

Her sister, Victoria McKinley, lay next to her sister for a while.

“She didn’t like to sleep alone,” she said, so she wanted to keep her company.

Necaise , too, stayed with her.

‘I just want her close’

Since her death, the family has been staying close to one another, something that’s not unusual because they already spend most of their time together.

They are remembering the young lady who was always shy when people first met her. Once she knew you, the family said, she was a talker.

McKinley cries when she thinks about the sister who played a major role in her son’s life, helping care for him.

“She wanted to finish school,” McKinley said. “She wanted to get married. , I just keep waiting for her to come through my door and tell me she is scared.”

The family says they are praying for Butler despite their pain and anger.

The family is trying to start focusing on the good times, but it hasn’t been easy.

Deschamp said she hasn’t slept more than three hours a night. She is used to talking to her daughter almost every day by text or phone. When she does sleep, she said, she dreams about what happened to her daughter.

In her bedroom, she has Mauffray’s pink ball cap from the Smokey Mountains, which she was wearing the last day of her life.

She also has her late daughter’s shirt from her job at Best Pawn and a teddy bear wrapped in another of her shirts to offer some comfort.

“I can smell her,” she said. “I just want her close.”

This story was originally published June 29, 2016 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Boyfriend fought to save Hancock woman killed in boating crash."