RICHMOND, Vermont. (AP) - The state's beautiful but often deadly Huntington Gorge has taken another life.
Police said 22-year-old Elanie Santor was walking with two companions on Sunday when she lost her footing and fell into the rushing, rain-swollen Huntington River, The Burlington Free Press reported. Rescue divers pulled her body from the water Monday morning. The preliminary cause of her death was accidental drowning.
The small gorge in Richmond is marked by rapids and cascades and is a popular spot for swimmers and nature lovers. But since 1950 its treacherous waters have taken more than two dozen lives, including that of state police rescue diver Sgt. Gary Gaboury, who drowned in 1992 while trying to recover another drowning victim.
At the gorge on Monday, some visitors were just learning about Santor's death. They advised swimming upstream or downstream but staying out of the most treacherous parts of the gorge.
Jared Thibault and Ebon Howard, both of Williston, picked a spot a little upstream from the gorge, but even there the water was running swiftly.
"We've been swimming here our whole lives," Thibault said. "You just have to respect the river and know where to go. ... It's sad for a spot that's as beautiful as this to have a reputation for being as dangerous as it does."
Several spots along a road that runs next to the Huntington River have trailheads that lead down the steep riverbank and are posted with signs warning of the dangers. Some of the signs are outdated and have death tolls smaller than the 26 now said to have perished in the past 65 years.
"Eighteen people have drowned here between 1950 and 1994," one says. "Most were swimmers caught by treacherous and deceptive currents that pulled them over the falls or sucked them down to the bottom of pools."
It then lists the 18 by their first names, ages and the years they died, including the state police rescue diver: Gary, 35, 1992.