36-year-old man identified as drowning victim in storm-related kayaking incident Posted on July 1, 2017 By Charles Thompson; cthompson@pennlive.com A kayaking accident apparently triggered by Saturday afternoon’s spotty heavy downpours has claimed the life of a North Lebanon Township man. State police said Perry Ratcliffe Jr., 36, was pronounced dead at 5:37 p.m., shortly after he was pulled from the Swatara Creek near Jonestown by other members of a group he had been boating with. The death is being treated as an accidental drowning, said Trooper Eric Dreisbach, of the state police’s Jonestown Barracks. Dreisbach said Ratcliffe and other kayakers were floating down the Swatara when a storm that dumped approximately two inches of rain in about 45 minutes turned portions of the creek into a raging rapids. Ratcliffe apparently became submerged after crossing over a low-head dam and was unable to recover. Several of his companions were able to bring him to an island in the creek where they started CPR, and resuscitation efforts continued when first responders arrived on the scene. Ratcliffe, however, apparently never regained consciousness. “It was just a very unfortunate accident, and a bad situation all the way around,” Dreisbach said. Emergency personnel responding to the scene were able to successfully rescue several other kayakers who had lost their boats or otherwise had become stranded, police said.