Drowning

A local family has issued a grim warning over the dangers of water currents and undertow in seemingly calm rivers after the death of a 47-year-old man from Flanders who drowned in the Delaware River over Labor Day weekend.

Police said Ricardo Ismalej Xujar, 47, was at the Landers Minisink Campground in the Town of Highland when he drowned while swimming in the Delaware River Saturday.

Police Officer Richard Freeborn and Trooper Michael Masino entered the Peconic River behind 57 W. Main Street to retrieve an unresponsive man found floating face down in the water Wednesday evening. They pulled him to shore and revived him with CPR.

The bodies of the two young men who were swept out into the Long Island Sound by strong currents in Wading River yesterday were found this morning near the Shoreham power plant.