Young Man Drowns Near Crvenka Pump Station in Borca

A young man drowned in Borca, O. E. (28), who fell into a canal beside the pipes of the “Crvenka” pump station on the embankment sometime during the night between August 8 and 9. Members of the Gendarmerie Diving Unit pulled his body out during the morning hours, and around 12:30 p.m. it was taken to the Institute of Forensic Medicine.

The accident happened around 3 a.m. The young man was with four friends, Z. P. (24), N. B. (22), S. S. (27) and V. J. (27), who told police they had come to the embankment to roast corn.

How the Accident Happened

The group climbed down the embankment, and O. E. went off to look for firewood. Making his way through the brush in the dark, he slipped and fell into the enclosure next to the pump station’s pipes. The space is walled in with concrete, but it is filled with water and mud and roughly five meters deep.

The young man vanished under the surface almost immediately. His friends tried to help him but could not, so they went looking for help at the nearest house.

A neighbor from Borca who was woken by cries described how the search began.

I heard screams calling out his name. I went out to the embankment and saw four young men who asked me to call the police, because they believed something had happened to their friend.

Police arrived shortly after the call. A pack of cigarettes was found floating on the water, and a mobile phone was recovered near the bank. The scene stayed secured through the night until the divers arrived.

Why Didn’t His Friends Hear Him Calling for Help?

The friends told police they never heard the young man call out at all. That is the only established fact about those moments, everything else remains a question for investigators to confirm.

The same neighbor who called the police offered his own theory.

The young men say they never heard him call out to them at all, which means he must have gone under immediately, maybe he even hit his head on the concrete. A terrible tragedy.

The autopsy at the Institute of Forensic Medicine is expected to answer that question by establishing the exact cause of death. The findings will show whether he suffered a head injury before going under and whether he was even conscious when he fell into the water. Until then, the sequence of events is known only from what his friends have told police and what officers found at the scene.

Divers on Site Since Early Morning

Members of the Gendarmerie Diving Unit arrived at the scene in the early morning hours and located the body soon after the search began. A local woman from Borca, whose account has been reported by other outlets, described the scene after the hours long search.

I saw them covered in mud all the way up to their heads, you could tell they gave everything they had to find him. Poor kid, to lose his life like that while out with friends. Young people gather on that embankment often and hang out over a barbecue.

After the on site investigation, the body was transported for autopsy under police escort.

The Embankment Draws Crowds, but the Pump Station Is No Safe Spot

The “Crvenka” pump station is a piece of drainage infrastructure, not a maintained recreation area. The basin next to its pipes is enclosed in concrete, yet it can still be reached through the brush, in the dark, with no light source other than whatever visitors bring themselves. By all indications, the young man was using his phone to light his way, since it was found right next to the bank.

At the same time, the embankment near Crvenka is a well known gathering spot, especially in summer at night, when young people come to hang out over a barbecue. Those two facts sit side by side and point to where the danger comes from: people show up on an unlit embankment, and just a few steps below lies five meters of water and mud that no one climbs out of alone.

A detail the neighbor shared shows just how disorienting the aftermath was: the car the young men had driven stayed parked on the embankment, because the keys were with the young man who died, so his friends had to walk home. They left their barbecue gear in the yard of the man who had called the police.

Police completed their on site investigation, and the next steps depend on the results of the autopsy.