Sgt. Mike Lang of the Englewood Police Department said the family — a husband and his wife and two teenagers — were walking with their pet dog in Englewood Reserve on Monday.
After the dog went into the water and possibly had some trouble, it is believed the wife went after it, and the husband then tried to save his wife, Lang said.
MetroParks would not release the name of the couple Monday night pending notification of relatives, said Five Rivers Chief Ranger Larry Jones. But Jones said the man had been a MetroParks employee for more than 25 years.
He said one of the couple’s teenage daughters flagged down a motorist traveling on U.S. 40 to summon help. Emergency calls were dispatched around 3 p.m.
Rescue boat teams were launched by 3:45 p.m. and crews set up spots along the river to search for the couple. Rescue crews withdrew by nightfall as visibility diminished.
The effort is scheduled to resume today by Five Rivers MetroParks rangers with the support of local fire departments.
Ron Fletcher, assistant Englewood fire chief, said the couple fell into the river where the water is "treacherous," a location that has seen one other drowning in the past three years.
In July 2003, World Airways pilot Willis Lawson Hunter, 37, of Nashville rowned there. According to police reports, witnesses saw him jogging in the park just before he fell. It's believed he died when he was caught in the low dam's powerful turbulence. Hunter's body was recovered two days later.
The couple, Fletcher said, could have fallen into the same area just below the low dam and could have been swept into tubes that travel beneath the larger dam. The tubes are often blocked by debris and can retain larger objects for long periods of time, possibly days.
“Our belief is this will be a body recovery,” Fletcher said. Adverse weather conditions could complicate the effort, he added.
A MetroParks project now under way aims to remove the low dam by 2008.
Emergency crews from Butler Twp. and Huber Heights were among those responding to the scene.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7407 or sbennish@DaytonDailyNews.com.
About the Author