A 43-year-old father and his 17-year-old son both drowned whilst practicing abseiling down the waterfalls along Rió Trevélez in Órgiva.

It appears the son had lost his footing and had fallen into the surging water below. His father dove in to come to his rescue but neither of them eventually came out of it alive.

A third person threw them a rope to hang onto as they were whirled around in the current but to no avail.

Although this stretch of the  barranco known as the Junta de los Ríos is considered very dangerous for the inexperienced, it remains very popular, regardlessly, and this accident was not the first to result in a death there.

The other member of the excursion party managed to finally drag the boy from the water but all his attempts to revive the lad were fruitless. The father was nowhere to be seen. His body was finally spotted by a Guardia Civil helicopter that same evening further down stream snagged on a tree trunk lying across the the river.

The tragedy unfolded around half three in the afternoon on Friday the 21st, when, as mentioned above, the lad lost his purchase and dropped into the fast flowing current beneath the waterfall. Such is the force of the water that the it churns around before continuing on down.

The emergency services received a call around 16.00h and the Guardia Civil mountain-rescue team was sent out immediately in a helicopter. The person that had accompanied the two victims had made the call when all attempts at CPR failed.

The search for the father began with the rescue team descending the river on foot whilst the helicopter also followed the course of the rapids. However the water was muddy which made it difficult to find the father. The search contined from 16.00h until 21.30h, which was when the father’s body was found 200 metres further downstream, partialy obscured by the tree trunk.

There then commenced a delicate operation to retrieve the victim using a helicopter to winching up the body of the father, assisted by the team on the ground who had arrived at the location. The helicopter finally flew back to base in the last light of the day.

The Guardia Civil are requesting that abseilers and excursionists stay away from the rapids at the moment because the snow thaw has swollen the river.

(News: Orgiva, Alpujarra, Granada, Andalucia)