DINOSAUR, Colo. — Officials have confirmed a man drowned in a rafting accident Saturday on the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument.
Anthony Vasi, 47, was visiting from Newport Beach, California on a commercial rafting trip with family and friends when their raft flipped around noon. Their raft became stuck on a rock in the rapids at Triplet Falls known as “the Birth Canal” and several were ejected into the river. Vasi was unresponsive once he was pulled from the water. Members of the rafting trip administered CPR, but he was declared dead when medical helicopter crews arrived.
The coroner’s office concluded that drowning was the cause of Vasi’s death, the National Park Service announced Tuesday.
The stretch of the river where the accident occurred was in a very remote part of the national monument; rangers traveled by raft to the scene to help the rest of the group reach a point where they could exit. They did so at Echo Park at about noon Sunday.
