The Maryland Natural Resources Police announced in a statement Thursday that a 22-year-old Lynchburg man had died following a kayaking incident in the area of Great Falls Sunday.
According to officials, Maryland Natural Resources Patrol Officers were dispatched to the area following a drowning incident involving a kayaker at 2:45 p.m., where CPR was being performed.
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Officers arrived on the scene and determined three men were navigating various stretches of rapids in the Potomac River when one of the men, 22-year-old William Caulfield Lankford, became separated from the group.
The two kayakers returned upriver after realizing that the man was missing and found him struggling in the rapids. The two men took action to free him, and brought him to shore. Officials say Lankford was wearing a personal flotation device.
Officials say that the men initiated CPR before emergency services arrived. Montgomery County Fire and Rescue personnel took over life-saving care of the individual before transporting him to Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, where he was pronounced deceased.
Maryland Natural Resources Police is leading the investigation into the individual’s death, which is ongoing. Autopsy will be conducted at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia in Manassas.