TRR photo by David Hulse The crew of the Lumberland Fire Department rescue boat, some still in parade uniforms, carry the recovered body of a Seaford, NY man to shore following a July 4 drowning. (Click for larger image)

Canoeist drowned at Shohola Rapids

By DAVID HULSE

BARRYVILLE, NY — Police say 51-year-old Richard Dilaurenzio struck his head on a rock after spilling his canoe in the Delaware River rapids below the confluence of Shohola Brook on July 4. Dilaurenzio died in the accident.

Michael Traver’s family cabin sits on the New York shore opposite the rapids where the accident took place around 11:00 a.m. Traver said he heard a woman (Dilaurenzio’s wife Carol) on the opposite shore screaming and pointing at a man in the water.

“He didn’t have a lifejacket on and he was face down, floating downstream,” Traver said.

Traver reported the incident, prompting a response from Lumberland, Yulan, Highland Lake, Shohola and Sparrowbush firefighters, many of them in dress uniforms having just finished marching in Glen Spey’s morning parade.

The National Park Service (NPS) launched an immediate water search and rescue efforts were centered from the NPS office on Handsome Eddy, about a mile south of the accident. Sightings were reported upstream and down as searchers scoured the area. Dilaurenzio was recovered upstream at the beach at the end of Shohola’s Happy Hollow Road, where unsuccessful resuscitation efforts took place.

The victim’s body was taken downstream to the NPS office where Sullivan County Coroner Tom Warren made the death pronouncement shortly after 1:00 p.m.

Carol Dilaurenzio was not injured.

Dilaurenzio was the second Upper Delaware drowning victim this season. Seventeen-year-old Obinna Okoro was drowned in a June 2 incident near Mongaup, when his commercial raft overturned in high water.

According to the NPS, 43 river drownings have occurred since the agency began managing the Upper Delaware in 1980. None of those victims were using lifejackets at the time of their accidents.