2 cousins who drowned in Massachusetts lake were skipping rocks in shallow water, didn’t know how to swim: officials
Two boys who drowned in a Massachusetts lake over the weekend were skipping rocks in shallow water when one of them fell and the other jumped in to try to rescue him, officials said.
Cousins Tiago Depina, 12, and Rafael Andrade, 13, were found dead after a frantic rescue effort Saturday night in Waldo Lake at D.W. Field Park, about 20 miles south of Boston. The boys did not know how to swim and no foul play is suspected, but local and state authorities are still investigating the incident, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said in a news release Sunday.
Police were called to the scene around 7:30 p.m. that night for a report of a possible drowning in the lake, which is in the city of Brockton. When cops arrived, they jumped into the lake after learning two children were missing underwater, Cruz said. Several witnesses and family members had also gone into the lake, but the kids were nowhere to be found.
“I heard screams coming from Waldo Lake. They were just going crazy, ‘Oh, I can’t find my kids,’” witness Valdo Centeio, one of the people who tried to help, told local news station NBC10.
“And then I asked him how many of them and he was like, ‘Oh, there’s two kids,’” Centeio recalled.
Police eventually called the Plymouth County Technical Rescue Team, which sent divers to help with the rescue attempts. Divers found Rafael’s body around 8:50 p.m., Cruz said. About 40 minutes later, they found Tiago’s body, according to the news release.
A preliminary investigation suggests the boys were skipping rocks when one of them slipped into the water.
“In that section, there is a steep drop off, and it appears one of the victims fell in while the other attempted to rescue him, and both went under the water,” Cruz said.
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Both cousins lived in Brockton and had recently moved to the U.S. from Cape Verde, their family told reporters. The Brockton school district called their deaths an “unthinkable loss” and said grief counseling would be offered at the middle school they attended.
“We were deeply saddened to learn that two members of the South Middle School community died on Saturday following a tragic accident,” Superintendent of Schools Michael Thomas said in a statement.
Cruz said an 11-year-old boy was pulled from the same lake earlier on Saturday and was taken to a hospital for treatment.
