Update: Cornish police on Wednesday morning identified the victim who drowned Tuesday night as Reed McWilliams, 21, of Bethel, Alaska.
—
Cornish
Cornish Police Chief Doug Hackett said the man, who was working with the Student Conservation Association, was swimming in the river around 5:45 p.m. near Blow-Me-Down Farm in Cornish when he didn’t resurface.
When the colleague realized he was missing, she promptly called 911, but a rescue effort was in vain.
Authorities haven’t released the man’s name, pending notification of family members.
Rescue workers from Twin State fire and police departments poured into a large field at the back of the farm, which borders the Connecticut River, at around 6 p.m. to begin search efforts.
Several vehicles hauled box trailers and boats to the river’s edge and workers rushed to suit up before carrying boats down a steep embankment and entering the water.
As night fell, crews conducted a “pattern search” of the river for roughly an hour before locating the man’s body in about 8 to 10 feet of water nearest the Vermont shoreline, Hackett said.
An ambulance was on scene, but left empty. A representative from the New Hampshire Medical Examiner’s Office arrived and pronounced the man dead.
It was too soon to tell what might have contributed to the man’s drowning, Hackett said. He noted the Connecticut River is known to have “significant undertows.”
To his knowledge, Hackett said, there hadn’t been a recent release of water from the Wilder Dam. The flow of the river is “very low,” Hackett said.
The man and woman who were swimming were part of a group of six members of the Student Conservation Association, a nonprofit group with offices in Charlestown that builds environmental leaders through hands-on service and training. This crew was working at the nearby Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site.
SCA Vice President of Communications Kevin Hamilton said the victim had a great sense of humor and was passionate about protecting the environment.
“He traveled across the country to selflessly serve to help protect the environment, and here we have this tragedy where his own future was taken away,” Hamilton said. “That’s what makes this so much worse. It is just so terribly sad.”
The group of six arrived at the National Park site earlier this week, and has been tasked with removing invasive species and invasive plants, Hamilton said.
They have been staying in a cabin at Saint-Gaudens. Blow-Me-Down Farm also is part of the Saint-Gaudens site.
The small group is part of a larger SCA corps based at Bear Brook State Park, just north of Manchester. The roughly 30 young adults have been together since January; the five at Saint-Gaudens returned to Bear Brook Tuesday night.
The victim was done with his workday at the time of the drowning, and likely was just cooling off in the river, Hamilton said.
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.