Two men have died after an accident Sunday night in the Potomac River near Key Bridge.
Calvin Cerpas and Danny Garcia were both killed, D.C. police said. Both men were 30 and lived in Manassas, Virginia.
The men were on the Aqueduct Bridge in Georgetown, overlooking the river, when one man decided to jump in, a friend of both men said. The other man saw that his friend was in trouble in the water, so he jumped in to try to save him, the friend said.
"Based upon the investigation, we believe that the second victim was attempting to rescue the first victim," a police spokesman confirmed.
The men had been friends since childhood, the friend said.
A woman said she heard a splash and then saw a man struggling to hang on to a boat.
"He was trying to hold on to the side of the boat, but he couldn't, and he kept trying to hold on to it, but he couldn't. And so we just saw him just go under," she said.
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Four D.C. fire department boats, a U.S. Park Police helicopter and a K-9 team searched for Cerpas and Garcia.
One man was pronounced dead at George Washington University Hospital about 10:15 p.m., a police report said. The second man was pronounced dead at the scene about 10:45 p.m.
People who knew the men hugged and cried on the bridge late Sunday.
