MAN DROWNS NEAR WHEATLEY
Witness says rescue attempts failed
A man believed to be a migrant farm worker from Guatemala has drowned after slipping under the water while exploring a sandbar in Lake Erie at Wheatley Provincial Park on Sunday.
Chatham-kent OPP said at 4:07 p.m. a 911 call was received from the park and officers and paramedics with Essex Windsor EMS responded after a 28-year-old man had been underwater for 10 minutes.
The man had been pulled from the water and CPR was conducted before he was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Christopher Glendenning of Windsor, a frequent visitor to the park and a pass holder, said he knew the man and his friend just to nod and say hello.
“I used to see them all the time and I’d always say hi but I don’t believe they speak or understand a word of English,” Glendenning said.
“The only word I could understand when they started saying anything was amigo.”
Glendenning said the pair were wading around on a sandbar at the extreme western edge of the park by Holiday Harbour Resort.
“I think they were trying to stay on the sandbar but they went out too far and they couldn’t reach the land, but one guy swam back and he was trying to grab the other guy,” Glendenning said.
He said the man was shouting in Spanish but he couldn’t understand him. Glendenning said he is not a strong swimmer because of a herniated disc.
“The guy ran up on the beach and grabbed a branch, but he wasn’t coming up no more,” Glendenning said.
“I would have brought (a) log out, he just needed something to grab onto. I truly feel I could have done something had I understood what was going on. It’s really bad because I was the one who was close there.”
After about 10 minutes the man’s body was found and dragged up on shore before emergency crews arrived.
“They found him and they dragged him up on the sand and they were pumping him, pumping him, pumping him, pumping him for I don’t know how long,” he said.
He said a man who was on scene and spoke Spanish spoke with the late man’s friend told him he was from Guatemala and had two children.
Glendenning said he wants to help out financially for the man’s funeral.
“I feel really bad,” he said. “I want to tell the wife I’m sorry. It feels like I need a level of forgiveness. I would have lent a hand had I known.”