Recently Dead

Brett R Gunn, a 41-year-old Sheboygan, Wisconsin, man drowned Wednesday after getting stuck in a storm sewer while trying to retrieve the cell phone he'd dropped. Neighbor Chris Van Erem, mowing his lawn, spotted Gunn's feet sticking up from the grate and attempted to pull him out, but couldn't budge the 300-pound man, whose head was underwater. "Absolutely helpless was the feeling," said Van Erem. It eventually took six firefighters to pull Gunn out and he was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

A Creedmoor, North Carolina, youth drowned Wednesday trying to retrieve his cell phone from Falls Lake while on a fishing trip with his mentor, Garrick McCollum of Covenant Community Partners of Durham. McCollum told the boy, Eddie Allen, to forget about the phone, but the 16-year-old jumped into the lake anyway and almost immediately began to drown. McCollum dived in after the boy to save him but also began to drown. Scott Blay, fishing nearby, heard them hollering and swam over to save them, but almost drowned himself and could only rescue the mentor. The boy died. "Nobody could swim real well," said Blay. "I feel bad. But I do feel good because I was able to do something."

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