Two Men Drown in Separate Accidents
An Italian student snapping a photo in the middle of a running creek and an Oakland man swimming in the Merced River both drowned in separate weekend incidents, park rangers said.
The drownings bring to eight the number of deaths in Yosemite this season, rangers said.
A 29-year-old Italian citizen slipped while taking a photo of friends Saturday in Chilnualna Creek in Wawona near the park’s southern edge, rangers said. The man, a graduate student in physics at Stanford University, tumbled about 55 feet down a series of cascades. His name was withheld pending notification of relatives.
The second victim, Charles Thomas Martz, 30, of Oakland, drowned Saturday in the Merced River in Wawona when he jumped into a swirling pool with friends and disappeared.
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