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Whitewater tuber dies on re-opened Clear Creek west of Golden, 18th death or disappearance on Colorado waterways

Rescuers searched for man, found him, performed CPR for an hour; Golden fire chief laments “three to four rescues a day” as people flock to mountain waterways for recreation

Bruce Finley
The Denver Post
Clear Creek runs through downtown and past Coors Brewing Company on July 1, 2019 in Golden.
Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post

A man in his 20s died Sunday night after falling off the rubber tube he was riding through whitewater currents along Clear Creek in a mountain canyon west of Denver.

Golden Fire Chief Alicia Welch said rescuers tried for more than an hour to revive the man before pronouncing him dead around 8:15 p.m.

It was at least the 18th death or disappearance this year on waterways around Colorado as rafters and others head to the mountains for recreation.



Heavy snow in the Rocky Mountains last winter has led to high flows along rivers, where more and more people go for rafting and tubing.

Golden and Jefferson County rescuers were notified around 5:35 p.m. Sunday that a man had gone missing after tubing on Clear Creek. Racing to the scene, the rescuers began a search and found the man around 7:10 p.m., Welch said.



He was unconscious. Paramedics attempted cardio-pulmonary resuscitation for more than an hour, she said. No other information on the man was made available.

Read the full story on The Denver Post.


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