A Massachusetts man died Saturday after falling out of a raft while on a whitewater rafting trip in the West Forks, according to the Maine Warden Service.
Michael Arena, 52, of Lexington, Massachusetts, was on a commercial rafting trip with North Country Rivers, a whitewater rafting outfitter out of Bingham, when he fell out of the raft as they were going through a series of rapids on the Dead River, Cpl. John MacDonald of the warden service said in an email Monday.
Arena was chaperoning a trip with a Boy Scout troop that included his son, according to the Wicked Local Lexington newspaper. The paper reported that Arena was thrown from the boat, along with 13 scouts and six other adult chaperons, by powerful waves that nearly flipped it over. Only the rafting guide was not thrown from the boat, the paper said.
Jim Murton, the owner of North Country Rivers, said Monday that “the rafting trips are safe. There are no problems at all with the trips. It was an accident.” Murton declined to comment further.
Upper Kennebec Valley Ambulance responded and pronounced Arena deceased at the scene, MacDonald said. The incident remains under investigation, and no further information was available, he said.
Rachel Ohm — 612-2368
Twitter: @rachel_ohm
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