The death toll from last week's tragic swimming pool accident on Staten Island has reached two. Yesterday morning Jonathan Proce, 21, died of complications from a grueling underwater endurance regimen that claimed the life of his friend Bodnar Vitenko, also 21, earlier in the week.
Vitekno and Proce had been practicing holding their breath underwater in the Lyons pool on Wednesday morning when something went wrong and neither surfaced. They had been training in the three-and-a-half foot pool since the start of the summer in the hopes of one day joining the Air Force's pararescue unit. By the time the lifeguards at the crowded pool noticed the two hadn't come up for air the pair may have been under for as long as twenty minutes. Both went into cardiac arrest after being pulled from the water and Vitekno was declared dead soon after.
Proce, who was a lifeguard himself, was with his family when he died. His family has "peace," a reverend for the man's family told the Advance. "He’s with the Lord at this time, but that doesn’t mean they’re not sad, or in mourning for their son."
