
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 14, 1993                   TAG: 9306140304
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MAN DROWNS IN THE POTOMAC

Authorities on Sunday night found the body of a West Virginia man who fell off his boat and drowned in the Potomac River near Alexandria after a dispute over who was to blame for the craft's running out of gas.

Donald P. Niemann, 44, of Harpers Ferry, W.Va., and four friends were on the 30-foot Chris Craft cruiser Saturday morning when it ran out of gas. A dispute broke out and two people fell overboard about 2:30 a.m. south of the Woodrow Wilson bridge, said John Verrico, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

Niemann's body was found about 5:45 p.m. not far from where he fell out of the boat, Verrico said.

"Whether it was a pushing into the water or an accidental fall into the water, that's what we're investigating," Verrico said.

In Richmond, divers with the city's river rescue team searched the James River on Sunday for Michael Morris, 15, who is presumed drowned after he was pulled under by rapids on Friday.

If he had stayed there and waited for professionals to come to his rescue, he might not have been sucked under by the current, Ralph White, a James River Park naturalist, said Saturday.

Instead, bystanders anxious to help coaxed the Huguenot High School student off the rock and into the water, White said. Morris could not swim, authorities said.

In Montgomery County, Md., authorities on Saturday recovered the body of a Herndon man who drowned in the Potomac River.

Robert Dale Dodson, 19, had waded across the river to an island Thursday with two friends, said Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Barbara MacLeod. When they tried to return, they encountered a trough and Dodson disappeared in the current.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB