Tide drowns 20-year-old man stuck waist-deep in mud flats, Alaska troopers say

A 20-year-old Illinois man stuck waist-deep in tidal mud flats died when the tide rose, submerging him, Alaska State Troopers reported.

Troopers and firefighters responded to reports of a man trapped in mud at 5:52 p.m. Sunday, May 21, near Hope, a dispatch said.

He had been walking on the mud flats with others, KTUU reported.

The man sank up to his waist in the mud, Alaska Public Radio reported. Bystanders tried to extricate him while firefighters and troopers were en route.

“Unfortunately, before we arrived on location, the individual was submerged,” Girdwood Fire Chief Michelle Weston told the station.

Zachary Porter died at 6:43 p.m. when the tide came in, troopers said. Rescue teams recovered his body the next morning. He was from Lake Bluff, Illinois, near Chicago, according to the Associated Press.

A bystander who tried to rescue Porter was treated for hypothermia, Alaska Public Radio reported.

In 1988, an 18-year-old woman died after becoming stuck in the mud, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

”When I started on the department, I was with people who had been on that other tragic mud rescue 30-plus years ago, so this just hit home with all the stories they’ve always told us of how it felt holding that person,” Weston told the publication. “It’s just so tragic.”

Hope is a community on the Kenai Peninsula about 90 miles south of Anchorage.

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