Dover and New Philadelphia firefighters put a boat into the Tuscarawas River Tuesday afternoon during a rescue effort that turned into a recovery. (Ryan Pastircak, WJER Radio)

NEW PHILADELPHIA (WJER) - The Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office has taken over the investigation into a river rescue effort turned recovery with one apparent kayaker pronounced dead. 

Police Chief Mike Goodwin says his department initially responded to reports of cries for help downstream from Buehler's. He says once they spotted the kayakers across river from the AEP portage off Mill Avenue, it took rescuers about 15-minutes to reach the bank.

“The problem you get into here is you start to losing sense of direction with the way, whether you’re facing north, south, east, west just because of the way the river curves here. But once we got here and got boots on the ground, knew where we were by the low-head dam here. We knew we were below that and on the opposite side.”

Goodwin says a good Samaritan initially swam across the river to the kayakers, where he found one person not breathing. He says that person conducted CPR until crews arrived.

“Our fire department tried to launch at the Carlisle Livery, couldn’t make it up because the water level was low. I called and said hey, listen, I’m at the portage. Bring up another boat and put it in here. You’re within a hundred yards of where the body is.”

Goodwin says the sheriff’s office is investigating how the accident occurred. Police are not releasing information on the name, age or gender of the victim at this time.   

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