Father drowns while trying to save 12 and 13-year-old daughters
A father in Maine died on Saturday after trying to rescue his drowning daughters.
Henry Brooks, a 46-year-old father from Hope, Maine, was killed after jumping into Seven Tree Pond to save his children.
Seven Tree Pond is a large lake located in Ayer Park near Union, Maine. It is connected by rivers to other lakes, which eventually empty out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Brooks took his daughters, ages 12 and 13, to the lake to swim on Saturday, July 8.
Around 4.30pm, one of his daughters was swept by a current into a deeper portion of the lake, where a river enters the body of water, the Maine Warden Service said.
Her sister tried to swim out and rescue her, but was also caught in the rushing water. ‘Both were swept out by the currents to the even deep portion of the pond,’ the Warden Service said.
Brooks was sitting at a nearby picnic table when he saw his daughters struggling in the current. He leapt into action and tried to swim to his struggling children.
His 27-year-old son also followed him into the lake, but grabbed a life jacket before jumping in.
Brooks’s son was able to rescue his sisters, but was unable to find his father.
The Warden Service deployed three divers to search for Brooks, who was eventually found not far from where his daughters were originally trapped.
‘After diving for a short period of time, they were able to locate and recover Brooks,’ the Warden Service said.
Brooks’s body was located about 50 feet from the lake’s shore, about seven feet below the surface. It was recovered around 7.30pm that same night.
Brooks’s children were hospitalized at PenBay Medical Center in Rockport, where they remained overnight for observation.
At least two other fathers died drowning over the July 4th holiday, as many Americans took summer trips to beaches and lakefronts.
On June 29, Marvin Alexan Fernandez Chicas drowned in Lake Nockamixon in Pennsylvania.
Chicas, who reportedly didn’t know how to swim, leapt into the lake attempting to save two drowning children – both of whom survived the ordeal.
On Independence Day, Luke Laidley drowned after a raft his boat was pulling capsized in Lake Michigan.
Laidley, who also survived the 9/11 terrorist attacks, dove into the lake to rescue the children on the raft. Although he was pulled back onboard the boat, he was unable to be revived.
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