One person died and three were rescued from the water Saturday evening near Port Covington.
Baltimore Police and firefighters were called to the 2600 block of Port Covington Drive at around 5:50 p.m. to a report of multiple people in the water, said Lindsey Eldridge, a spokesperson for the Baltimore Police Department.
Lt. Joshua Shaffer, the dive team coordinator for the Baltimore Fire Department, said three people went into the water near the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River in an attempt to save a fourth person.
The person who died appears to have swum beyond a safe water mark and did not have the skills to be that far out in the water, Shaffer said. Shaffer said divers rescued the other three people and brought them back to the shore.
They found the body of the victim about an hour later, Shaffer said. That person’s body has been sent to the Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office.
The identities of the four were not immediately released Saturday evening.
The waters near the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River are a common place for people to swim on summer days, and Saturday was marked by record-setting heat in Baltimore. The temperature hit 101 degrees at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. There were about 10 people at the scene when officials arrived, Shaffer said.
The incident happened a day before the Harbor Splash, the first authorized swim in the Inner Harbor in decades, in Fells Point.
