Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 6, 1990 TAG: 9007060798
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Authorities would not release any names or other details, but said the woman's husband reported her missing about 12:30 a.m.
The search by about 30 police, firefighters and rescue workers was focused on the wooded area behind the university's Dedmon Center until dawn. Then the operation shifted to the river where 10 divers using two boats searched for a mile downstream, officials said.
At about 9:30 a.m., a state police helicopter from Abingdon was brought in and swept a mile of the river for about half an hour. A state police dog also was brought in, but it was not used because too many people had been on the scene.
Radford Fire Chief Calvin Whitt said no one was sure the woman had drowned and she might have walked off. She was wearing bright-colored clothing, he said, so her body would have been easily spotted in the water.
"We're doing everything humanly possible," Whitt said.
On Thursday, a 47-year-old West Virginia man drowned while swimming at Shumate Falls on the New River near Glen Lyn in Giles County.
It was the second drowning in less than a week at the rapid section of the river.
William Whitt of Princeton, W.Va., was pulled from the water by rescue workers about 8 p.m., 2 1/2 hours after his brother-in-law, Carl Sayer, also of West Virginia, saw him go under.
Whitt was pronounced dead at the scene.
Sayer told rescue workers that Whitt had been swimming in shallow water in the middle of the river when Sayer heard him call for help. "Then he went down and didn't come back up," Freeman said Sayer told the workers.
Nearly 20 rescue workers, including two divers, searched until one of two crews searching in rescue boats found Whitt's body in about 10 feet of water near where he went down.
Whitt apparently had a heart condition and was taking medication. But Freeman said rescuers were not sure whether Whitt had a heart attack.
It was the fourth drowning in the vicinity in five years.
Last Friday, a 19-year-old West Virginia man drowned at Shumate Falls while swimming with family and friends.
by CNB