So sad. Family must be horrified.
I worked for a company in OhioPyle Pa. They employed many guides in the off season. They told me some funny stores and some sad. Most had to do with drinking.
When I was there, an 18 year old girl out partying in the evening fell off a rock into the water. It was high water season somewhere near or just after winter and the water was rushing. Rivers were closed during this time for rafting. They never found her till spring time a few months later. She was churning at the bottom of an eddy all that time. Horrible way to go.
Another time during the same season of high water on a warm day, again, the river was closed to rafting but up near the area where everyone picnics, one dumb teen decided to dare himself to get across on the caution rope. River was so high he couldn't maintain enough strength to cross any further so he was stuck out in the middle just holding on. All the while screaming for help and that he was loosing grip at any time.
It was suicide for the average person to get yourself out there also. 2 people tried and could barely make it back to safety from going out only a qtr the way. Then from out of the stores a few hundred yards back into the woods ran a gorilla sized man (a guide) and apparently super strong came through the crowed, tied a rope on to a tree and and then onto himself. He must have been 6'5 and 300lb of muscle. He worked over the rope out to the guy (about a 40' hand over hand while being pulled by the current as his weight and body sagged into the water that was going with such a force I can't describe. He quickly got to the teen, tied the rope around the both of them and let go. SWAP! the rope flung taught straight down the river in a split second and you could no longer see either under the water. BOOM! He pops up and all of us grabbed hold of the rope and reeled them both in to show. By that time, he was practically already on to shore but we were making sure.
That story probably happens a couple times a year there. It may not have been that guys first time at that. He did know what to do and how to do it fast. This story was a good one. This happened in a time when nobody carried cel phones with a camera or video. It happens so much there that it didn't even make the news but it would be a great short heroic action film. That kid lived on to do other stupid stuff I'm sure, but maybe not that anymore.
