Search continues for two missing in family’s fatal tubing outing on N.C. river - The Washington Post

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Authorities were searching for two people still missing Saturday after a family floating in inflatable tubes on a North Carolina river earlier in the week dropped over a steep dam.

The bodies of three of the party were located Thursday, the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office said, about 19 hours after the group of nine extended relatives embarked on a tubing trip the day before. Four people were rescued hanging onto various items.

Officials said they brought in out-of-town rescue teams to assist in the effort to locate Teresa Villano, 35, and Isiah Crawford, 7, the son of one of the deceased.

Rockingham County Emergency Services Director Rodney Cates told The Washington Post on Saturday that “multiple agencies utilizing multiple watercraft” were deployed, focusing their rescue efforts north of the dam.

“We’re hoping it’ll be a rescue,” Lt. Kevin Suthard, a spokesperson for the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office, told The Post. “We’re still hopeful for that.”

The ordeal began Wednesday evening when several of the family’s tubes became untied from one another on the Dan River in Eden, N.C. Some floated over the Duke Energy dam around 7 p.m., according to the sheriff’s office. Emergency officials said they were not alerted of the incident until around 3:15 p.m. Thursday, when they received a 911 call from a Duke Energy employee.

The sheriff’s office tweeted Thursday night that officers had found the bodies of Antonio Ramon, 30; Bridish Crawford, 27; and Sophie Wilson, 14, about three miles from the dam. Rueben Villano, 35; Irene Villano, 18; Eric Villano, 14; and Karlos Villano, 14, were rescued and taken to hospitals for treatment of non-life-threatening conditions, authorities said.

“Words can’t explain what we feel right now,” Megan Heitz, the mother of Sophie Wilson, wrote on Facebook. “She was my best friend, a sweetheart and had so much life to live.”

Officials said the drop-off at the dam, located about 35 miles north of Greensboro, N.C., was about eight feet. Suthard described it to ABC Radio as “a pretty steep drop.”

Cates said at a news conference that while it is not unusual for people to go tubing on the Dan River, most get out of the river above the dam and then walk around it, adding that visitors are discouraged from tubing near it.

Cates also stressed the importance of wearing a safety vest when tubing: “Know where you are, know your surroundings, have your safety vest, your life vest, the inner tube may not always stay inflated, and if the inner tube is not inflated you need some type of flotation device to secure you as you are coming on down the river.”

He said it was unclear why emergency officials were not alerted sooner.

Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page asked the public to keep the family and emergency personnel in their thoughts.

“Say a prayer for these families because they lost somebody,” Page told reporters Friday. “It’s very tragic.”

In her Facebook post, Heitz shared a GoFundMe page to help bring Wilson’s body home to LaPorte, Ind., so the family could bury her.

In a message to her daughter, she wrote, “I hope you know how much we love you.”

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Search continues for two missing in family’s fatal tubing outing on N.C. river - The Washington Post
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