{"id":1263,"date":"2026-07-22T00:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/?p=1263"},"modified":"2026-07-22T00:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:42:07","slug":"2-married-couples-from-honduras-were-among-5-adults-who-drowned-in-an-ohio-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/?p=1263","title":{"rendered":"2 married couples from Honduras were among 5 adults who drowned in an Ohio river"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><span class=\"oyrPY qlwaB AGxeB  \">POWELL, Ohio &#8212; <\/span>The skies were mostly clear and weeks of sweltering heat had finally broken as 33-year-old Jose Mario Pineda Dias and his 28-year-old wife, Marina Suyapa Regalado, set out with their two children for some leisurely fishing in an Ohio river. A second Honduran couple and an adult friend joined them. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">A photo snapped by a passing boater sometime Sunday shows them apparently about thigh deep in the Scioto River, fishing poles in hand, standing around a big log. Calm as the surface appeared, the river was running high and fast, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. All five adults <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/ohio-scioto-river-deaths-b52447c34f062ce3b2d2d6988796e2ef\">ended up drowning<\/a>, authorities have said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">After the photo was taken, the group might have returned to shore. It is not quite clear. What Delaware County Sheriff Jeffrey Balzer has said is that one of the adults was struggling to swim in the river when several others went into the water to help. All five were swept under, he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The two women&#8217;s bodies were recovered Sunday and the three men&#8217;s bodies were found Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">On Tuesday, Honduran authorities confirmed that four of the five adults were Honduran citizens \u2014 Dias and Regalado and another married couple whose names have not yet been released. The fifth adult also has yet to be identified.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Flabia Zamora, director of consular affairs at the Honduran Foreign Ministry, told reporters Tuesday that they were working with U.S. authorities to bring their bodies home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Zamora said that once U.S. officials have identified all the victims, Honduras will start the repatriation process, which could take at least a month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">She said the couple\u2019s children are in the care of the state of Ohio and that arrangements will be made to reunite them with relatives in Honduras.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">One of the children, a boy wrapped only in a towel, fled the riverbank in a panic and ascended to the road as the adults were drowning. According to a passing driver who called 911, \u201cHe was screaming, \u2018Mama! Mama!\u2019 and he was about to come out onto the road, and he was crying.\u201d She said she was afraid he was headed onto a multilane road that snakes along the Scioto&#8217;s eastern banks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Brenda Raya, who described herself as a relative, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to cover funeral and transportation costs, as well as childcare costs for the two orphaned children. She said they are 8 and 10.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cThe emotional and financial burden is overwhelming, and we want to honor the memory of our loved ones while providing for the children left behind,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The drownings occurred along the O\u2019Shaughnessy Reservoir. The reservoir and its 18 miles (29 kilometers) of shoreline are the property of the city of Columbus. According to the city\u2019s Recreation and Parks Department, Jet Skis, tubing and swimming are not permitted in any city of Columbus reservoir.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Lt. Heather Byers, of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said rivers can be deceptively calm on the surface.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cEven though the water doesn\u2019t seem to be moving very quickly, you can still get swept away in very slow-moving water,\u201d she said. \u201cAlso, since you can\u2019t always see the bottom, you never know if you\u2019re in, you know, you could be in 2 to 3 feet of water, what you\u2019re comfortable standing in, and then the next thing you know you\u2019re at 4 or 5 feet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Besides the currents and the depths, people can catch a foot between the rocks, snag their clothes on a branch or lose their balance on slippery algae.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Gonz\u00e1lez reported from Honduras. Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus and John Raby in Charleston, W.Va., contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.com\/US\/wireStory\/2-married-couples-honduras-5-adults-drowned-ohio-134966188\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POWELL, Ohio &#8212; The skies were mostly clear and weeks of sweltering heat had finally broken as 33-year-old Jose Mario Pineda Dias and his 28-year-old wife, Marina Suyapa Regalado, set out with their two children for some leisurely fishing in an Ohio river. A second Honduran couple and an adult friend joined them. A photo&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}