Two married couples from Honduras were among the five adults who drowned while trying to save a struggling swimmer in an Ohio river — and now the young, orphaned children of one pair are stuck in the US without any living relatives, according to authorities and relatives.
Jose Mario Pineda Dias, 33, his wife, Marina Suyapa Regalad, 28, and their two children were joined by another married couple and an adult friend on the Scioto River on Sunday night when the tragedy unfolded, according to Honduran Authorities.
The friends were enjoying a night of fishing along the O’Shaughnessy Reservoir when a man in the group jumped into the water for a swim and began to struggle, according to Delaware County Sheriff Jeffrey Balzer.
Two other adults dove in to try to save the man. After the pair also began to struggle, two other adults went in to help, Balzer previously described at a news conference.
Dias, Regalad, and the three other people never emerged from the river — leaving the two children, aged 8 and 10, orphans, according to authorities and relatives.
Two women were pulled from the water and brought to hospitals where they were pronounced dead. Three men’s bodies were recovered from the river later on Monday.
Authorities rushed to the scene after a motorist noticed a “clearly distraught” young child wrapped in only a towel running along a nearby road around 9 p.m. and called 911.
The terrified child said that his “family was in the river,” cops said.
Honduran authorities confirmed that four of the five adults who died in the horrifying ordeal were citizens of Honduras, including two married couples.
The second couple and the fifth adult have not yet been identified by authorities.
Flabia Zamora, the director of consular affairs at the Honduran Foreign Ministry, told reporters on Tuesday that they were working with US authorities to bring their bodies home.
Once US officials complete identifying all of the victims, the Central American country will begin the repatriation process, which could take at least a month.
It still remains unclear how the group became swept under the water, which was running high and fast.
The river was flowing at a rate of 350 cubic feet per second on Sunday — more than double the average rate, according to data from a US Geological Survey water gauge at the nearby dam.
A photo taken by a passing boater appeared to show the crew thigh-deep in the river in Powell, north of Columbus, with fishing poles, surrounding a big log.
The two children are currently in the care of Ohio family services, and arrangements will be made to reunite them with their relatives in Honduras.
A relative of the couple, Brenda Raya, has launched a GoFundMe to cover funeral and transportation costs, as well as childcare expenses for the two children.
With Post Wires
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