The 28-year-old drowned in Frenchman Bay after kayaking off Hancock Point and getting caught in stiff winds, a Maine State Police spokeswoman said.
AGAWAM – Eric M. Hogan, who grew up in Agawam, died June 19 off Bar Harbor, Maine, while kayaking on the last day of his honeymoon, according to Maine State Police in Orono.
The 28-year-old Hogan drowned in Frenchman Bay after kayaking off Hancock Point and getting caught in stiff winds, a Maine State Police spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Eric HoganThe Coast Guard recovered the Webster resident’s body Sunday off Hulls Cove off Bar Harbor. His kayak had been found earlier off the Porcupine Islands.
Hogan and his wife, Sarah Kellogg Hogan, were on their honeymoon. Hogan took his kayak onto the water alone about 7 a.m. Sunday while winds were blowing hard. Gusts later increased to 30 to 35 mph. An autopsy by the Maine state medical examiner’s office in Augusta showed Hogan died of an accidental drowning, according to an office staffer.
A student in a doctoral program at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Hogan was recalled fondly by those who knew him.
Mayor Richard A. Cohen, who attended Hogan’s May 28 wedding, spoke highly of him.
“He was just a great kid. Everyone who knew him loved him. He always had a big, big smile,” Cohen said.
The mayor, who met Cohen through the Eagle Scout program, described him as kind and caring.
Hogan was an Eagle Scout and a two-time Western Mass. wrestling champion, according to the obituary published in The Republican Wednesday. He was described as an adventure seeker who was certified in the first level of sky diving.
Cohen described Hogan as a very humble person. Upon congratulating him for winning a competitive science research grant, Cohen said the young man was more impressed with the fact that he would get a new computer out of it.
Alan R. Cohen, Hogan’s guidance counselor while he was a student at Agawam High School, also had good memories of him.
“He was just one of those perfect kids who enjoyed life,” said Cohen, the mayor’s twin brother. “He was the kind of person you liked to be around because he was so positive.”
Hogan was in the last year of a doctoral program in the UMass Memorial Medical Center Graduate School of Biomedical Science in Worcester, specializing in neurobiology. He was studying the molecular mechanism underlying addiction with a focus on nicotine. Paul D. Gardner, one of Hogan’s faculty advisors, described him as someone who was passionate about science.
“He was one of the friendliest people we have ever met. He went out of his way to help everyone in the lab,” Gardner said.
Hogan had a close call in an accident near the medical center in which an elderly man’s vehicle struck his car. When the senior citizen offered to buy him lunch Hogan took him up on it.
“I don’t know too many people who would go out to lunch with someone who almost killed him,” Gardner said.
A diehard Red Sox fan, Hogan never took his Red Sox baseball cap off, Gardner said.