Of sadness and scum

Obviously, my thoughts and prayers go out to Will Bleakley, Marquis Cooper, Corey Smith and their families. This whole ordeal sounds absolutely horrifying:

Struggling in their life jackets, they somehow managed to make it back to the boat. But the 21-foot Everglades fishing craft was upside-down. And though the men were in their 20s and strong — two played for the NFL and the others had played for USF — they couldn't right the boat.

So the four friends clung to the slick, white hull.

Hours passed. Gusts of 10, then 20 mph slapped their faces. Darkness descended.

By then, experts say, the men must have begun to lose feeling in their limbs. Their faces probably felt frozen. They likely became disoriented.

For more than 12 hours, they gripped the boat as the temperature dropped to 60 degrees and the waves climbed over 10 feet.

By Monday, only one man was left holding on.

... Dark fell Monday night without a sign of the other three men. Coast Guard crews promised to continue searching. But after two days in frigid waves, the situation was seeming bleak.

Sanchez said the Coast Guard told him that the other three football players clung to that overturned boat for 12 to 16 hours. Schuyler must have seen them all slip away.

The search for Bleakley, Cooper and Smith is going on about 45 minutes from my office. As of now, those three are presumed dead. In tragic times like these, words elude me.

Unfortunately, that's not a problem for the peanut gallery that has already taken over the comments portion of the story. Some people are just scum.