Drownings and river rescues again played a prominent part in 2018 in Carbon County.

A Hazleton man’s body was pulled from the Lehigh River on June 19.

Angel Rivas, 24, floundered for a brief time before going under water without resurfacing, according to family at the scene.

“He had probably been under about 10 minutes before we got there,” said Vince Yaich, Jim Thorpe Fire Department chief.

By the time the fire department got on scene, other members in the group had entered the water trying to locate the victim.

“They became stranded as well,” Yaich said. “We had immediately called the Lehighton Fire Department dive team, and the first goal was to get those individuals out of the water.”

The Lehighton dive team swam out with flotation devices to retrieve the people one by one and return them to land.

On June 29, a New Jersey man drowned in the Lehigh River after he was pulled under the water near the bridge trestle, and bystanders lost sight of him. Crews were called back out hours later for another hiker who fell at the Glen Onoko Falls.

Yaich said the young man suffered a head injury after falling around 15 to 20 feet near the second falls.

Five people were rescued after getting caught up in Lehigh River rapid waters on July 29.

Diamond Fire Company Chief Michael Wentz said there were five people on rafts that got stuck up on the bridge, throwing them off.

Wentz said one person was at the tip of the island just south of the bridge hanging on a tree branch, while another was hanging on the farthest end of a tree branch holding on.

A group of 50 rafters in distress had to be rescued in mid-August. The group was rafting with the outfitter Whitewater Rafting Adventures in Nesquehoning, according to Lehighton Fire Department Chief Patrick Mriss.

Mriss said only one person sustained a minor injury and had to be transported to a hospital.

The rafters were pulled out between the Thomas J. McCall Memorial Bridge at routes 209 and 443 and the turnpike bridge, which goes over the Lehigh at Route 895.

A New York man drowned Sept. 1 halfway between Glen Onoko and Penn Haven Junction.

Carbon County Coroner Robert W. Miller Jr. said Christopher Santana, 33, was rafting with a group of nine people when he went into the water a little before 1 p.m.

“We were told he was sitting on edge of the raft, which hit a rock and he was thrown off,” Miller said.

Santana’s foot became wedged in a rock, trapping him, according to officials.

On Oct. 21, another rescue effort involving 45 emergency services personnel lasted around four hour.

Yaich said the initial call was for a victim who fell in the vicinity of the first and second falls, but they got other reports that he was up at the third falls. He was ultimately found in the area of the first falls.

Yaich said the man went down over the embankment about 25 or 35 feet at a steep, inaccessible part. He said reports were that the man went off the trail trying to take a shortcut, wound up losing his footing and fell.

“These rescues can get very labor intensive,” Yaich said. “It’s always an extended period of time pulling manpower from their towns, and that jeopardizes their towns.”

Yaich said his department responds to an average of 15 to 20 incidents between the Glen and the Lehigh River each year, yet nothing seems to be done.

“Still to this point, we are getting no type of suggestions, answers, if the state’s going to do anything up there,” he said. “But this particular area of the trail, we call it the falls trail — the trail that runs along the creek all the way up to the falls — the Game Commission should do whatever it would take to close that trail off.”

“I say the same thing every time, and it’s just falling on deaf ears,” he said.

Two signs, in English and another in Spanish, were posted this year stating “not a designated swimming area.”

“Swimming is illegal in that area, but we’re not going to arrest people,” Terry Brady, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said earlier this week. “We will tell them it’s illegal, get them out of the water and try to direct them to Beltzville State Park, where they can swim. Our rangers are trying to educate and say, ‘here are alternatives.’ We don’t want to discourage people from gathering.”