[From www.Niagara-Gazette.com]
State Park Police will resume their search, later Tuesday, for a Buffalo man who is missing and feared drowned in the lower Niagara River near Devil’s Hole.
Police said the 22-year-old man from Buffalo slipped into the fast moving waters of the lower river early Sunday morning. He had gone to the river gorge to fish with friends.
“The water is very swift there,” Park Police Lt. Patrick Moriarty said. “We understand he was the first to catch a fish and he was trying to reel it in. He apparently got up on a rock to do that and slipped and went into the water.
The man’s friends said he tried to “fight” his way back to the shoreline.
“He tried to get back to the rocks, but got pulled out into the middle of the river,” Moriarty said. “His friends could see him out there for a while and then he disappeared.”
The Park Police lieutenant said the men were fishing an area not normally used for that activity.
“That area is not restricted for fisherman,” Moriarty said, “but it’s not a place where experience fisherman would normally go because of the swift moving water and the danger.”
He said police, ordinarily, have not problem with fishermen in the gorge because they can act as “eyes and ears” for officers and frequently spot possible trouble before it happens.
“In this case, you had three young men who didn’t realize the risks of fishing in a spot like that,” Moriarty said. “The didn’t perceive the danger until it was too late.”
On Sunday afternoon, Park police called in the Erie County Sheriff’s Department helicopter to assist them in their search. While the chopper was in the area, its crew made another discovery.
“They saw what appeared to be the remains of a woman on the Canadian shoreline,” Moriarty said.
The body was spotted upstream from where the American search was underway. Ontario Park Police said they have tentatively identified the body and believe it is that of a suicide victim.
Ontario Park Police also made a rescue and an arrest on Sunday.
Members of the department’s High Angle River Team, along with Niagara Falls, Ontario firefighters and EMTs were able to being a 22-year-old Welland woman, who suffered an ankle injury, out of the gorge.
Canadian park Police said the woman was charged with being intoxicated in a public place.
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