WEST FORKS PLANTATION (AP) — Authorities say a man ejected from a raft while on a whitewater rafting trip is dead.
The Maine Warden Service says 67-year-old Richard Sanders, of York, was on a commercial rafting trip on the Dead River Saturday when he and six others, including a guide employed by North Country Rivers, were ejected. Game wardens say the raft flipped on a remote section of the river.
Initial investigations had indicated only Sanders was ejected.
Witnesses say Sanders may have been submerged for several minutes. Lifesaving measures were performed but he couldn’t be revived. He was wearing a lifejacket and a helmet.
Warden service spokesman Cpl. John MacDonald says the popular commercial rafting trips are heavily regulated and it’s not common for such fatal accidents to occur.
There was a fatal commercial rafting accident in 2016 and two in 2008.
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