At about 8 p.m. the sheriff’s office Regional Water Rescue Unit was called to assist with a reported drowning in the canal just over the Hamilton border.
Three teens, ages 15 and 16, had been fishing at the canal and decided to swim across the water. William Borkowski, 16, of Middletown, made it to the other side, when Allen — a sophomore at Hamilton High School — began struggling about half-way across, according to the sheriff’s office.
Aeryal Burkhart, 15, of Fairfield, began struggling and started to be carried downstream. She was able to grab a tree limb, and clung to it until she was rescued by a Hamilton Fire Department rescue team.
Borkowski swam back to assist Allen, but was unable to save him before he disappeared under the water. The rescue team’s advanced sonar was able to locate Allen in the murky water.
An autopsy is scheduled for Thursday morning at the Butler County Coroner’s Office. An official cause of death has not yet been ruled by Coroner Lisa Mannix.
Allen transferred to Hamilton City Schools in February from Edgewood High School, according to Joni Copas, a Hamilton schools spokeswoman.
In a 911 call placed at 7:26 p.m., a caller frantically shrieks “Where is he?” and a voice in the background screams “I don’t know!”
A minute later, the person in the background yells “I couldn’t save him!” with the caller responding “You have to go after him!” The 911 operator warns them “They’re on their way. Stay out of the river.”
“Save him!” the caller tells the other person, who replies “I can’t! I almost drowned myself!”
She later yells, “He’s right there! Get him!” and gives the phone to someone else, to whom the 911 operator instructs, “Don’t let her get in the water.”
The other person replies, “She went in. She went in.”
Craft said the water in the canal was “smooth as glass to look at … but there was a horrific undercurrent.”
“This is a horrific tragedy,” he said. “Every year at this time we are in the face of a tragedy like this pulling someone from the river or the canal. The water is dangerous.”
“I know that canal well, having grown up in Hamilton’s North End,” said Sheriff Richard Jones, a Hamilton native. “As a kid, I swam and canoed right there where this happened. I guess I was lucky that something like this didn’t happen back then. This is a very sad reminder that rivers and waterways really are not meant to be play areas.”
Frances Mennone, executive director of the Great Miami Rowing Center, said these type of accidents occur in river towns nationwide.
“It’s not as though our waterway is any more or less dangerous than the rest of the country,” she said.
Mennone said she does not believe the tragedy will generate any cause for concern when it comes to events on or along the river.
“I think any reasonable folk will realize that … accidents can happen,” she said. “Water is dangerous and you just have to be careful around it.”
Canals, in general, are man-made structures designed to move water and “once you’re in, you can’t really get back out because there’s nothing to grab,” Mennone said.
“They’re not meant to be played in,” she said.
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