A kayaker who died after she was caught in the Potomac River near the Montgomery County and Washington, D.C. border has been identified as a 20-year-old woman.
Ella Mills, 20, died Sunday, according to the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). She was a student at Columbia University in New York City and was on a trip with the university’s Whitewater Kayaking Club, according to school leaders.
Fire and rescue personnel responded to the Potomac River in the Little Falls area at about 3:15 p.m. Sunday for a kayaker in distress, according to Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service (MCFRS) Chief Spokesperson Pete Piringer.
About two dozen adults from a college kayak group were boating, according to Piringer. One woman — now identified as Mills — was caught under a rock in hydraulics, which is a type of water flow that can be hazardous. People helped her before MCFRS arrived, but she did not survive.
The MCFRS Swift Water Rescue Team located Mills on the D.C. side, according to MPD.
“Ella had a love for learning, was intellectually curious, and passionate about literature—eager to soak in new ways of looking at literature and viewing the world as a literary scholar,” Dean of General Studies Lisa Rosen-Metsch wrote in a note to the community.
Mills was originally from Dublin, Ireland and came to New York this month to attend Columbia University through an international program between the university and Trinity College Dublin.
