A 54-year-old man who went missing while kayaking from the Gano Street boat ramp was found dead in the Seekonk River Sunday after a passing boater spotted his body floating in the water. The captain of a nearby barge pulled the man from the river and ferried him to a dock on the East Providence side of the waterway, where Providence police took over the scene.
How the Search Unfolded
According to WJAR, the man had been reported missing after setting out on a kayak from the Gano Street boat ramp, and a boater later noticed his body floating in the water before the barge captain retrieved it. Police have not released the man's identity. Investigators say there are no signs of foul play in the death, though the case remains under investigation by Providence detectives, the department's Bureau of Criminal Identification, and the state medical examiner, who was notified and responded to the scene, per the station's report.
The Gano Street site where the man launched his kayak is the only public boat ramp along Providence's roughly 14 miles of saltwater shoreline, according to Providence Daily Dose. The city-owned launch, which opened in 2014, offers 17 parking spots and a concrete slab leading into the Seekonk River, according to a site report from ExploreRI. At that stretch of water, the Seekonk River stretches more than 1,000 feet wide and is shaped by tidal currents that connect northward into an estuarine basin and southward into the Providence River narrows, per PaddleWays, which notes that shifting winds and tides can create hazardous paddling conditions.
A State Grappling With Water Safety
Rhode Island regulators have pushed hard in recent years to get paddlers into life jackets. Under rules from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management that took effect in 2023, anyone operating or riding in a kayak, canoe, or paddleboard in state waters must wear a Coast Guard-approved life jacket at all times while underway, or risk a $100 fine. The mandate made Rhode Island only the second state in the country to require life jackets for paddlers of all ages, according to Paddling Magazine.
State officials moved on the rule after data showed that nearly half of all boating-related drowning victims in Rhode Island between 2018 and 2021 were paddle craft users who weren't wearing life jackets, Paddling Magazine reported. Three fatal kayaking accidents in the state during 2022 added further urgency to the push. The department has also pointed to U.S. Coast Guard data showing that boating accidents become five times more likely to be fatal in water colder than 60 degrees Fahrenheit, since cold-water immersion can incapacitate a person physically well before hypothermia sets in, according to the department's guidance.
A River With a Grim Recent History
This is not the first tragedy to unfold along this stretch of the Seekonk River. In June, three family members — a 45-year-old woman, a 22-year-old woman, and a 2-year-old girl — died after their vehicle plunged into the river at a boat ramp in neighboring Pawtucket, a case that triggered a large multi-agency dive team response, according to WJAR. In 2022, police and emergency crews also responded to the Gano Park boat launch itself after a vehicle was driven into the river during a dispute; the passenger escaped unharmed while the driver fled on foot, and the vehicle was later recovered about 30 yards off the ramp, GoLocalProv reported at the time.
Statewide, drowning remains a persistent public safety concern even though Rhode Island's rate trails the national average. CDC data published in 2026 shows Rhode Island recorded an age-adjusted unintentional drowning rate of 1.08 deaths per 100,000 residents between 2018 and 2021, compared with a national average of 1.31, according to Patch. The state still averages about 16 unintentional drowning deaths a year. Nationally, the CDC has reported that unintentional drowning deaths topped 4,500 annually from 2020 through 2022, a sustained increase after decades of decline, with drowning remaining a leading cause of accidental death for young children and a major cause of death among adults.
In response to the toll, Rhode Island lawmakers established a $65,000 Water Safety Grant Program in fiscal year 2024, administered by the Department of Environmental Management, to fund free swim lessons for low-income youth through municipal and nonprofit instruction programs. Whether the man recovered from the Seekonk River Sunday was wearing a life jacket, and what exactly led to his death, has not been disclosed as the investigation continues.
