Free Republic

According to the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project, 34 drownings were reported on the Great Lakes on Sunday, a 36% increase from last year, when 25 people drowned in the Great Lakes on the Fourth of July.

Emerald Isle, N.C. — One person drowned Wednesday afternoon after swimming near Emerald Isle, despite red flag conditions. Authorities said a 41-year-old man was pulled from the ocean near the 9000 block of Emerald Isle at about 2:30 p.m., but efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. Emergency personnel were called to four water rescues within less than one hour Wednesday afternoon as a result of people ignoring the red flag warnings, authorities said. Video from Emerald Isle showed beach-goers on Wednesday forming a human chain to rescue swimmers from the rough surf. It is unclear if the video was taken...

WILMINGTON, N.C. — The deadly season along North Carolina's coast continues as three people died after pulled from waters along the southeastern coast. Media outlets report the drownings occurred Saturday off Wrightsville Beach, Holden Beach and Sunset Beach. Coastline Rescue Chief David Robinson says a surfer pulled a 20-year-old man from the waters off Holden Beach. Robinson says officials believe the man got caught in a rip current.

Swimming pools are a much greater danger to black children and teens than they are to other kids, a new government study shows. Black children ages 5 to 19 drown in swimming pools at a rate more than five times that of white children, the research found. That suggests a lot of blacks are not learning to swim, said the lead author, Dr. Julie Gilchrist of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Swimming is a life-saving skill, not just another sport, she said. …

CALEXICO, Calif. (AP) -- A government agency on the front lines of the immigration debate has begun installing lifesaving buoys in a fast-moving canal along the U.S.-Mexico border where migrants drown each year as they sneak into the country illegally. The debate over the lifelines has long presented authorities with a moral dilemma: Is it acceptable to do nothing when so many immigrants are dying in the water?

STRAWBERRY RESERVOIR, Utah (AP) -- For more than a decade, the remains of several boaters have been hidden in the dark, cold depths of this 26-square-mile lake high in the Uinta National Forest. Then, in a span of just two weeks, Strawberry Reservoir gave up six of its dead during a search for a couple whose boat capsized November 8. What loosened the reservoir's grip on the dead was sonar, which transmits high-frequency waves through water and registers vibrations that bounce off an object. Search and rescue crews in the past dragged the lake for bodies with a triangular sheet...

I’ll be brief this time about Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans. Due to stupidity and incompetence, he did not carry out the evacuation plan for his city. As a result, more than a thousand of his constituents died, and tens of thousands suffered personal disaster, and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard and the National Guard. There was an established evacuation plan for Southern Louisiana, dated 1 January, 2004. Local and national media were incompetent in not reporting this plan and its details. The salient point was that the mandatory evacuation had to be called early, to...

They're pulled from backyard pools and bathtubs each year, tiny limp bodies, blue and not breathing. A young life can vanish quickly under water. A survivor can endure a lifetime of disabilities. Either way, families are torn apart by an almost always preventable tragedy. Standard summer companions in our desert climate, swimming pools can be deadlier for children than guns. A child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming accident than in gunplay, writes Steven D. Levitt, University of Chicago economics professor and best-selling author. Levitt analyzed child deaths from residential swimming pools and guns and found...

HOUSTON — More than two years after Andrea Yates (search) was found guilty of drowning her children in a bathtub, her attorney appealed Friday in a challenge to Texas insanity law. The appeal also detailed what defense attorneys said were 19 errors made during the trial, including the court's decision to admit the clothing the children wore at the time of their death and alleged false testimony by a prosecution expert witness.

<p>So it's not exactly the end of the divine luminous world and it's not exactly as bitterly dire as BushCo smirkingly reaming this nation and gutting schools and the economy and the environment and sex and joy, all slathered with his bald-faced lies about war. No, it's not quite as bad as that.</p>

Marine who drowned in helicopter crash in Iraq was from Beaver Dam Associated Press Last Updated: May 20, 2003 A Marine who died Monday after he jumped into a canal trying to reach victims of a helicopter crash in Iraq was from Beaver Dam, Wis. Kirk Straseskie, 23, died Monday after a Sea-Knight helicopter crashed into a canal shortly after takeoff in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. Four Marines on the helicopter were killed, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. Two Marines on the canal's banks jumped into the water to help, and one died trying, the...

TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) - U.S. soldiers raided a dozen buildings in Saddam Hussein's home town Friday, killing one Iraqi and detaining about 20. U.S. officials also announced the capture in Baghdad of one of Saddam's most trusted aides. The aide, Mizban Khadr Hadi, was a member of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council and had been an adviser to Saddam since the early 1980s. Captured Thursday, Hadi was ranked No. 41 on the U.S. most-wanted list of 55 regime leaders. Even with U.S. President George W. Bush declaring an end to "major combat operations," the raid in Tikrit was the latest of...

Two Marines Who Drowned Deemed Accident .c The Associated Press PEORIA, Ill. (AP) - The deaths of two Marines who drowned while crossing a canal in southeast Iraq were ruled accidental, a military official said Monday. The probe concluded there was no negligence by commanding officers in the deaths of Evan James of La Harpe and Sgt. Bradley Korthaus of Davenport, Iowa, said Gunnery Sgt. James Howard, a spokesman for their Peoria-based reserve unit. The investigation reclassified the deaths as occurring in a hostile environment. That indicates the Marines were under threat of war when they disappeared in the Saddam...

ALONG ROUTE 8, Iraq -- The crew and the tank nicknamed ''Hermes'' disappeared just after midnight last Tuesday. It vanished, it seemed, in the dust and darkness just ahead of Marine Capt. Brendan Rodden. In his tank immediately behind, Rodden didn't realize the Hermes was gone until his unit had traveled five more miles -- after the column of M1A1 Abrams tanks from the 1st Tank Battalion turned away from an unfinished bridge and skirted west along the Euphrates River. They probably just got disoriented, Rodden thought, maybe mixed up with another unit. It was easy enough to get lost...

Davenport, Ia. - A Marine Corps spokesman confirmed late Wednesday that the body of a missing Marine from Davenport had been found. Sgt. Bradley Korthaus, 28, disappeared Monday in the Saddam Canal in southeast Iraq while swimming across the waterway with three other Marines from his Peoria, Ill.-based engineering unit. Two made it across.Korthaus and Cpl. Evan James of La Harpe, Ill., drowned. Korthaus is the first Iowan to die in Iraq during the current Persian Gulf conflict.Korthaus' family was notified by the Marine Corps late Wednesday of his death.A friend said the family was grieving. Relatives declined to say...

<p>Two Marines drowned in southern Iraq after attempting to cross a canal without a safety line while wearing heavy gear and rifles, The Washington Times has learned.</p> <p>The Marines were identified by the Pentagon as Cpl. Evan James, 20, of Hancock, Ill., and Sgt. Bradley Korthaus, 28, of Scott, Iowa. Both were part of a Marine Corps Reserve engineer company in Peoria, Ill.</p>

<p>Two Marines drowned in southern Iraq after attempting to cross a canal without a safety line while wearing heavy gear and rifles, The Washington Times has learned.</p> <p>The Marines were identified by the Pentagon as Cpl. Evan James, 20, of Hancock, Ill., and Sgt. Bradley Korthaus, 28, of Scott, Iowa. Both were part of a Marine Corps Reserve engineer company in Peoria, Ill.</p>

Two drown, three missing in Lake Ray Hubbard Search continues for boaters 09/23/2002 By KIMBERLY DURNAN / Dallas Web Staff Two people died and three others were missing after a fishing boat carrying 10 passengers sank early Monday morning on Lake Ray Hubbard. At daybreak, an intense search continued for a 12-year-old girl and two men who went down when the small boat capsized. (DALLAS WEB STAFF) Five of the passengers were rescued, including two children. An 18-year-old woman who was aboard the boat was able to swim to shore. She went to a house on Scenic Drive in...

The Harris County District Attorney announced today that his office plans no more prosecutions in the drowning deaths of Andrea Pia Yates' five children last year. "After a careful review of the facts, and the applicable law, it is the position of this office that there is insufficient evidence to pursue charges against any other individuals in connection with the June 2001 drownings of Noah, John, Paul, Luke and Mary Yates," DA Chuck Rosenthal said. "As in all cases, we remain open to the possibility that additional evidence may surface that would change this decision. There is no statute of...