6-year-old girl found clinging to corpse of a woman in Lake Gleneida in New York

[puzzld]

A 6-year-old girl found clinging to the corpse of a woman was rescued Monday from Lake Gleneida in New York by a group of people in a rowboat, police said.

The girl was taken to Putnam Hospital Center and said to be uninjured.



The woman she was with, whose cause of death is currently unknown, was identified as Pamela Kaner, 59, of Brewster, N.Y., according to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. She was pronounced dead at the scene, and her body was taken to the hospital, where an autopsy will be performed.

Three boaters -- two men and a woman -- who had gone out to fish on Lake Gleneida, about 55 miles outside of New York City, noticed the girl holding onto a body several hundred feet from the shore crying out for help Monday afternoon.


The child was not wearing a life vest, one of the boaters told police, so they placed a life vest on her and brought her to shore where they called Carmel police.

Stay informed with the latest headlines; sign up for our newsletter

Town police and rescue crews, which included a dive team from the Mahopac Fire Department and volunteer ambulance and firefighters, arrived to the lake at about 5 p.m. after receiving a 911 call, Carmel Police Sgt. John Dearman told The Journal News.

Dearman said there was no opportunity for life-saving measures to be performed on Kaner.

The woman was an acquaintance of the 6-year-old?s mother and had been watching the girl briefly while her mother took her car to the mechanic.

Kaner and girl had apparently been wading in the shallow waters of the lake shortly before 5 p.m., but events leading up to the woman?s death and the girl's rescue were not yet certain.

?It is unknown if she had a medical event occur that caused her to drown or if they just got too far out," Dearman said. ?We don?t know. We?re going to have to wait for the autopsy.?


After rescuing the girl, police interviewed the three boaters who made the 911 call. They said they initially believed the girl was clinging to a large plastic bag and only realized it was a body after getting closer.

A woman who identified herself as the 6-year-old?s mother was also interviewed by police at the scene. She said she had become worried after several attempts to call Kaner earlier had failed.

Police cleared the scene by 7:45 p.m. Dearman said authorities believe the incident to be accidental but are considering all possibilities.

The waters of Lake Gleneida are the jurisdiction of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and their police detectives will be conducting the follow-up investigation.

In a statement, DEP Commissioner Carter Strickland said, ?We are saddened by the tragedy that occurred last night on Lake Gleneida and are working with the Camel Police to determine what happened. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.?

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012...york-lake?lite

[g r ee n ey e s]

Dude.

[McMama]

Dude.

Right? Poor kid. There goes the end of innocence for her, and the potential for being really screwed up.

[HockeyGirl]

Mega creepy to stumble across that scene

[andrea0121]

Jesus.

Yeah. I can't imagine..

[HockeyGirl]

if she was several hundred feet off shore, the womans dead body must have been floating away with the current and the girl was holding on for dear life.
Maybe she was starting to float away when she died and the girl wasnt strong enough to pull her back

[PCP777]

if she was several hundred feet off shore, the womans dead body must have been floating away with the current and the girl was holding on for dear life.
Maybe she was starting to float away when she died and the girl wasnt strong enough to pull her back

Usually not much current in a lake, but wind can push stuff around. The body was acting like a sail.

[bowieluva]

I don't want to be a dick but was this woman mega fat or something? How the fuck was a corpse so buoyant?

[puzzld]

I don't want to be a dick but was this woman mega fat or something? How the fuck was a corpse so buoyant?

It's not necessarily about fat. It's about lung capacity.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/617991

[bowieluva]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/617991

wait, that explained nothing haha.

[PCP777]

I don't want to be a dick but was this woman mega fat or something? How the fuck was a corpse so buoyant?

Your question interested me so I tried to find out why her body was floating after an apparent recent death. I thought bodies typically sank, then rose when gases made them bouyant.

Bodies that are dead before they reach the water could have different floating patterns. A corpse that falls in face-first might remain on the surface, since there would be no way for the air inside the lungs to escape. (A faceup corpse would fill with water and sink in the normal fashion.)

[bowieluva]

Thaaarrr we go. Okay, so maybe she had a heart attack or an aneurysm or something.

[PCP777]

The lake is fresh water.


also:

George Sniffen, a friend of Kaner, said he was surprised to hear she had gone in the water. Kaner, he said, walked hunched over with a cane and had arthritis. She was disabled and did not work, Sniffen said Tuesday afternoon.

[puzzld]

wait, that explained nothing haha.

At functional residual capacity, the value approximating the lung volume of a recently dead body, 69% of the subjects would float in seawater, whereas only 7% would float in freshwater. Results of this study indicate that while drowned bodies are more likely to sink than bodies dead of other causes, no conclusion regarding the cause of death can be made on the basis of whether bodies float or sink.

7% of people apparently have enough lung capacity to float in fresh water after death. Pamela Kaner may have had above average lung capacity. Makes sense to me.

[HockeyGirl]

hmm maybe she went further in after the girl

[rachy]

Pamela Kaner of Brewster appeared to suffer heart attack in Lake Gleneida: sister-in-law

CARMEL — Authorities Tuesday were trying to determine the circumstances surrounding a Brewster woman’s death in Lake Gleneida on Monday, when a 6-year-old girl was found clinging to her body in the water.

New York City Department of Environmental Protection police identified the victim as Pamela Kaner, 59. A small group of people in a rowboat saw the unidentified girl clinging to the woman’s body several hundred feet from shore about 5 p.m. Monday and rescued her.

Kaner was watching the girl, a friend’s daughter, while the friend took her car to a nearby mechanic. The girl told police Kaner brought her into the water and was holding her before something went wrong. Swimming is not allowed in Lake Gleneida, part of New York City’s public watershed.

Police were awaiting the results of an autopsy performed on Kaner at Putnam Hospital Center in Carmel to determine whether Kaner had a medical episode or condition before she died. Dr. William Stahl, one of four county coroners, said Tuesday that he did not perform the autopsy and was not sure who did.

Terri Kaner, Pamela Kaner’s sister-in-law, said preliminary findings appear to show that Pamela suffered a heart attack.

The 6-year-old girl also was taken to Putnam Hospital Center as a precaution but was not injured.

George Sniffen, a friend of Kaner, said he was surprised to hear she had gone in the water. Kaner, he said, walked hunched over with a cane and had arthritis. She was disabled and did not work, Sniffen said Tuesday afternoon.

A man who answered the door Tuesday morning at the Putnam Avenue apartment where Kaner lived declined to comment. A small star-shaped sign on door bears the words “Faith Hope and Love.”

Bernice Urbanski, a neighbor at the 34 Putnam Ave. apartments, said Tuesday morning that she had just learned the news and was saddened.

“She was a very nice lady,” Urbanski said. “She was a very sweet person.”

Kaner used to live near Lake Gleneida and loved the lake, Sniffen said. He also said Kaner had an old black Labrador, though it is unclear if the dog was with her on Monday night. A dog could be heard barking Tuesday inside Kaner’s apartment.

“She had to have gone in the water for the dog or the kid,” Sniffen said. “It doesn't make sense to me.”

Sniffen met Kaner at the Southeast bar and restaurant Tom & Jerry’s, where he spoke to The Journal News.

“She was a great girl to me,” Sniffen said. “She always said she loved me.”

Terri Kaner, of Roscoe NY, called Pamela “a very giving person. If she had $1 she would have given you 90 cents.”

Terri Kaner said she believed Pamela Kaner suffered from early-onset osteoporosis. Since her 30s, she complained of back problems, she said.

Pamela Kaner, she continued, did not have any children of her own.

"She really enjoyed her friends children and interacting with them," Terri Kaner said.

Pamela Kaner, she said, did not have her dog with her at the lake.

Carmel police referred all questions to the DEP police. A message left for a spokesman Tuesday afternoon was not immediately returned.

“We are saddened by the tragedy that occurred (Monday) night on Lake Gleneida, and are working with Carmel Police to determine what happened,” DEP Commissioner Carter Strickland said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.”

Officials at Beecher Funeral Home in Brewster said there will be no calling hours for Kaner just a “direct cremation.” Christopher Milano, funeral director at Beecher, said Kaner’s cremated remains will be brought down to New York City where her parents live for a service.

Town police, along with volunteer ambulance personnel and firefighters, arrived at the lake on Route 52 about 5 p.m. Monday after receiving a 911 call. Two men and a woman who had gone fishing summoned authorities after pulling the girl to safety. Firefighters then commandeered a boat on the shore and used it to recover Kaner’s body.

Several of Kaner’s friends responded to the scene Monday but were too distraught to comment, except to say she was a wonderful person.

Lake Gleneida was quiet Tuesday afternoon save for a father and three girls who had parked their bicycles by the water to eat lunch. The man said he was not aware of the tragedy that took place Monday evening.

Lake Gleneida covers about 168 acres and contains roughly 2.5 billion gallons of water. It is 100 feet at its deepest but has a median depth of about 48 feet. New York City acquired the lake in 1870.

http://www.lohud.com/article/BH/2012...sey=nav%7Chead

[Olivia]

Pamela - she didn't look well

[bowieluva]

SCORE. I called heart attack. Ten points.