The widow of a Hamden man who drowned at a state park in Milford is lashing out at the lifeguards, saying they "didn't seem all that interested" in trying to save her husband.
The New Haven Register reports that Anna Daddio clams that, after her husband, 34-year-old Rocco Daddio and her best friend's son were swept off a sandbar, she immediately ran to a lifeguard station.
She claims that there was "no sense of urgency" for the lifeguard to call 911 and that every second was crucial in saving her husband and the boy. Rocco Daddio could not swim. He died when he tried to walk back from Charles Island and was swept away in a current within a quarter-mile of the shore. The boy was rescued by a man and his nephew on a Jet Ski.
A spokesperson for the State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection disputes Daddio's claims, saying the lifeguards called 911 immediately and did their best to search from a kayak and a surfboard.
However, the sister of the man who rescued the boy told the Register that "the lifeguards seemed unsure of what should be going on".
