An Oct. 3, 2020, fishing outing in Huntersville, North Carolina, turned tragic after a 2-year-old boy entered the swift-flowing Catawba River. With the boy was his mother and her partner, 34-year-old cable installer D’Angelo Cordero Jenkins, of Rock Hill, South Carolina. Jenkins immediately jumped in, fully clothed, after the boy and reached him in the river, but then had difficulty swimming with the boy. Hearing the mother’s calls for help, Michael Byers, a 65-year-old retired business operator of Lexington, North Carolina, entered the river fully clothed, and swam to Jenkins and the boy. He grasped the boy’s arm and took him from Jenkins, towing him to the boat ramp where the boy safely exited the water. Byers was nearly exhausted and could not return to assist Jenkins, who was floating in the river. The boy was treated overnight at a hospital; Jenkins drowned.
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