[Paddlewise] Kayaker dies

This article appeared in the May 4, 1998 edition of Newsday, a Long Island
daily paper:



Man's Fatal Kayak Outing

By Errol A. Cockfield Jr. STAFF WRITER


    An avid kayaker with homes in East Moriches and New York City died
Saturday after paddling at Cupsogue Beach in West Hampton, Southampton
town police said.
    At about 4:45 p.m. Saturday, a man walking on the beach noticed the
body of Rudolf M. Oeding-Erdel  in the surf several hundred feet from an
empty yellow kayak, police said.
    Police believe he drowned, but they are waiting for the results of
an autopsy by the Suffolk County Medical Examiner's Office.
    Det. Doreen Isola of the Southampton police said Oeding-Erdel, 35,
left from East Moriches at about 3 p.m.
     He told a friend he planned to stay close to shore  and would be
back at his summer cottage within an hour.
    But by 5:30 p.m., when Oeding-Erdel had not returned,  the friend,
not knowing his body had been found 45 minutes earlier, called the
Coast Guard in Moriches, police said.
    Isola said Oeding-Erdel may have encountered rough waters as he
kayaked through the Moriches Inlet, where waves reached 6 to 8 feet
yesterday.
    "His wife is devastated," she said.


Copyright 1998, Newsday Inc.

Man's Fatal Kayak Outing., 05-04-1998, pp A24. 




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