He died learning to swim
Ivy kid’s kin ‘feel destroyed’
A 17-YEAR-OLD Cornell University freshman who drowned in Ithaca didn’t know how to swim, his stepfather told the Daily News.
Winston Perez-Ventura, of the Bronx, was just getting the hang of it after recently signing up for a swimming safety class.
“He doesn’t kow how to swim,” stepdad Carlos Gutierrez said on Monday. “He was just learning.”
Perez-Ventura drowned while swimming in Fall Creek near Ithaca Falls at about 2:30 p.m. Saturday. Swimming at the falls is prohibited, officials said.
“The police is still investigating everything,” the stepdad said from behind a door at his apartment in Morrisania. “So we can't tell you anything else.”
Gutierrez said he returned Sunday after retrieving the teen’s laptop and other belongings from Ithaca.
“I don’t have the words to even describe how I feel,” he said.
Perez-Ventura’s mom, Agnelli Gutierrez added, “I feel destroyed.”
State troopers found PerezVentura’s body around 7:20 p.m. Saturday.
A native of the Dominican Republic, the teen was in Ithaca for a freshman summer program, preparing for his first semester at Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning. He planned to major in architecture.
An ABC News video that went viral captured him opening an email revealing that he had been accepted to the Ivy League school. The video showed him celebrating with friends.
A Cornell spokesman described him as a “bright young man with a very promising future.”
Neighbor Carlos Santana, 55, recalled running into Perez-Ventura in the elevator at night, while the teen headed to his family’s 11th-floor apartment.
“He talked about his education a lot, and was always very goal oriented,” Santana recalled. “When I heard the news, I felt like it was my own kid.”
A GoFundMe page set up to raise money for his funeral had a goal of $20,000. More than $22,000 had been raised by Monday night.
“I only met Winston once, and he was outstanding,” wrote Robert North, who donated $50. “I have always heard a lot of great things about Winston.”
Officer Jamie Williamson, a spokesman for the Ithaca police, said cops do not suspect foul play. Results of a toxicology screen are not expected back for another week.
“It’s a really sad case,” he said. “Every year, we have an educational campaign and an enforcement campaign, and we do everything we can to keep people out of the gorges, and people still go.
“They are dangerous if you don’t obey the rules,” he added.
Most of the drownings are attributed to people getting drawn too far into the water, then not being able to get back to the shore.
“The undercurrent draws you further out in the water, until you can’t get back,” he said.