Kelsei Horn is wrapped in a blanket as she stands with her mother, Connie Tillery, and her brother, Randy Tillery, Tuesday night.(Brian Loden The Vicksburg Post)

[7/21/04]A Vicksburg man drowned Tuesday evening while trying to save an 11-year-old girl from the swift currents of the Mississippi River at LeTourneau Landing.

Separately, this morning, a Vicksburg woman was killed in an accident on Interstate 20 near Edwards, Warren County Sheriff’s Department and the Mississippi Highway Patrol confirmed.

Neither Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace nor Sgt. James Walker with the highway patrol would release further information about the wreck that was reported at 7:18.

In Tuesday night’s drowning, Pablo Quiroz Hernandez, 24, 3577 U.S. 61 South Lot 32, died after jumping in the river to rescue Kelsei Horn.

Warren County Deputy Coroner Larry Chisley said the death was due to accidental drowning. An autopsy was scheduled tonight at Mississippi Mortuary in Rankin County.

Kelsei was with her mother, brother and Hernandez at the landing. After walking along the muddy bank, Kelsei waded into the waters to wash mud off of her feet, she said later, still dripping wet and wrapped in a blanket.

“I bent down to wash the mud off my feet because I didn’t think I had it all off, and the current took me,” she said.

As her mother, Connie Tillery, 34, ran for help, Hernandez jumped in.

“He knew how to swim, and he tried to get me,” Kelsei said.

James Lynn Sr. and his family were nearby and called 911 at 7:39.

“This woman came up the road and said her baby girl had gone under water,” Lynn said. “I got in the car with her and when we got down here, the girl and the small boy were coming out of the water, and they said that the man had gone under.”

As Lynn jumped in, his son, Danny Lynn brought a boat to try to rescue the man.

The Lynns, Warren County Sheriff’s deputies and Vicksburg Police officers pulled the man from the river at 8:02. He was about 100 feet south of the landing and about 75 feet from the bank, Sheriff Martin Pace said.

Hernandez had worked for Goodwin Floor Finishing for two years, said the owner, Donald Goodwin.

Goodwin described the man as a hardworking, honest man.

Pace said Hernandez, an immigrant from Mexico, had been wiring money earned on his job to his sister, who still lives in Mexico.

“I thought the world of that boy,” Goodwin said. “He lost his life trying to save a little girl; that’s the way he was.”

Chisley said Hernandez’s brother is on his way to Vicksburg from North Carolina.

The drowning was the first in Warren County this year.