41-year-old Adriano Pacheco of Portugal died Saturday while trying to swim across the Delaware River near Cochecton with a friend, who survived and was treated at a local hospital. The Times Herald-Record has the details.
Just last week, an eighteen-year-old Boy Scout leader drowned while trying to swim across the river. Pacheco's is the fourth drowning in the Delaware River since May, the Times Herald-Record reports:
The latest deaths have frustrated authorities, whose messages of caution are sometimes being ignored.
They repeated them Sunday: The river is stronger than it looks. Wear a life vest. Being a strong swimmer isn't enough.
"It's frustrating, because our ultimate goal is to prevent these drownings," Hinkes said. "Trying to get those messages across to all the diverse people who come here, needless to say, is a challenge."
Dick Martinkovic, Sullivan County's commissioner of public safety, said the emergency calls are also starting to overstress the county's dive team, which spent practically all of its Independence Day weekend pulling people from the river — and has returned practically every week since to make rescues and recoveries.
