Drowning Is ‘Same Sad Story’ : L.A. River: Adam Bischoff’s death last week rekindles 12-year-old memories for one woman. Her fiance died in a similar manner.

Nancy Rigg relived the worst moments of her life last week as she watched television images of Adam Paul Bischoff being swept to his death by the rain-fed currents of the Los Angeles River.

The doomed struggles of the Woodland Hills 15-year-old seemed, to Rigg, a cruel replay of the death of her fiance, Earl Higgins, a 29-year-old writer and producer who drowned 12 years ago while trying to rescue an 11-year-old boy from the river after a series of storms.

“The last look that I saw on Earl’s face was just like that of Adam Bischoff, which was what was so tragically haunting this past week for me,” Rigg, 41, of Los Angeles said Tuesday.

“The same story, same story, same sad story.”

Rigg said that since Adam’s death she has written to members of the Los Angeles City Council, pushing for an interagency contingency plan that would include posting county lifeguards at fire stations near the river during heavy rains, and more flood-danger education in schools.

“Yesterday was the 12th anniversary of Earl’s death,” Rigg said. “It’s too strange, too coincidental.”

Even the bicycle that Adam rode into an arroyo, where he was swept away, was a replay for her.

Rigg and Higgins were walking their dog at Sunny Nook footbridge just south of Los Feliz Boulevard on Feb. 17, 1980, when they saw two boys riding bicycles on the river’s sloped embankments. The couple grew concerned because the river, swollen by two weeks of storms, looked like “a contained flash flood,” Rigg said.

They watched, horrified, as Jimmy Ventrillo lost his bike in the river and stepped in to retrieve it. Jimmy was quickly seized by the 35 m.p.h. current.

Higgins, who had arrived in Los Angeles six weeks before to try his hand at screenwriting, immediately ran across the bridge and stepped into the water to help, but he was no match for the current.

“That was the last time I saw him ever,” Rigg said. Rigg said she called to others in Griffith Park for help and firefighters soon arrived.

Jimmy was found that day, washed safely ashore about two miles downstream. But it was another nine months--filled with combing river banks, checking local hospitals and hoping against hope--before Higgins’ body was found in Long Beach Harbor, Rigg said.

“I knew that Earl was probably dead, but when the body was recovered, that’s when hope died,” she said.

For years, Rigg said, pounding rain set her on edge. Still, she rarely ventures near the river. And when it storms, she stays indoors.

A free-lance writer, Rigg chose to remain in Los Angeles, working to fulfill the couple’s dream of making it in the movie business. Recently, she pulled out some stories that Higgins had been working on to see if she could develop them further. All in all, she said, she has rebuilt her life.

But she was unprepared for the emotions revived by the sight of Adam’s battle, as the El Camino Real High School student was swept nearly 10 miles downriver as would-be rescuers raced from bridge to bridge, throwing him flotation devices and lowering ropes.

But, unable to grab the rescue equipment, Adam disappeared beneath the roiling waters. His body was found the next morning.

“That broke my heart. That should not have been,” she said.

“Somebody has got to speak for those whose voices are now silent. I can’t stand silently by and watch another 12 years go by without viable change.”