Officials have confirmed that 43 year old Dwayne Allen Cooper of Mount Hope, in Fayette County, drowned in the New River Wednesday afternoon. The National Park Service says Cooper was swimming with his fiance's children about 15 feet from shore near the Stone Cliff River Landing when the children noticed he had disappeared and called out for their mother, a certified nursing assistant who dragged him to shore, called for help and began CPR. Cooper was unconscious and unresponsive at that time. Cooper was transported to Plateau Medical Center in Oak Hill, where he was pronounced dead at 7:20 P.M.
