Within 200 yards or 3-minutes into the swim, Richard Harley, was in trouble. The kayak staff and a rescue team which included a fellow competitor began assisting him almost right away. Within the hour he passed away
Richard Harley was not a slow swimmer either, the Brooklyn Bridge Swim demands that you qualify yourself with race times and so he did.
From Newsday:
More than 400 people registered for Saturday's event and 13 were turned away because they did not have proper documentation, Berger said.
This was the first time Harley had entered an NYC Swim event, Berger said. According to documents he provided, he had a personal best of 22:04 for a one-mile swim and had been recently certified in a pool in which he finished a 3,300-meter swim in 54 minutes - equivalent to 27 minutes a mile.
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