Former KHS basketball player drowns
HIGH FALLS, N.Y. » A former Kingston High School basketball player and honor student drowned while he was swimming with friends in the Rondout Creek off Bruceville Road, the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday.
The body of Christopher K. Bamba, 18, of Kingston, was recovered after a water emergency was reported at 5:40 p.m. Tuesday in the vicinity of 25 Bruceville Road in the Marbletown hamlet of High Falls, the Sheriff’s Office said in a press release.
The release said Bamba was swimming with friends when, despite rescue efforts by several people, he was unable to reach the shore.
Divers from the Sheriff’s Office and the Ulster
Hose fire department were able to pull Bamba from the water, but resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at the scene, the release state.
Bamba was a varsity basketball player for Kingston High School and, as a 12th-grader, was on the team that went to the state Class AA semifinals in March 2019.
He also was on the high school’s honor roll for the fourth quarter of the 2018-19 academic year, according to the Freeman’s online archive.
A post on the high school’s Facebook page Wednesday afternoon said Bamaba “had a huge heart, bright smile and infectious personality. You couldn’t help but be happy in his presence.”
Bamba was to be a sophomore at Utica College this fall and was on the school’s basketball team, the Pioneers, according to the team’s Facebook page.
“We are saddened beyond words to learn of the tragic passing of Chris Bamba,” the Pioneers posted. They said he was “adored and admired by so many, including his men’s basketball teammates and coaches, his classmates, and professors.”
The Sheriff’s Office said preliminary indications, including information from witnesses, suggest Bamba’s drowning was accidental.
At the scene with the Sheriff’s Office and Ulster Hose were state police, Rosendale police, Mobile Life Support Services, Marbletown First Aid and fire companies from High Falls, Cottekill and Stone Ridge.
Almost exactly two years ago, on June 19, 2018, a Wallkill High School student, Christopher Pelaez, 17, drowned while swimming in the same area of the Rondout Creek with friends.
Pelaez was underwater for more than 45 minutes before his body was recovered.