Sag Harbor sixth grader dies in Poconos rafting trip accident

A 12-year-old Pierson Middle School student died after a guided rafting excursion for Sag Harbor sixth graders overturned on the Lehigh River in Pennsylvania, turning an end-of-year tradition into a devastating loss for the East End school community. Four others aboard the inflatable raft were rescued after all five people were thrown into the water.

The accident happened Wednesday evening, May 27, in East Penn Township, Carbon County, during the district’s annual class trip to the Poconos. Carbon County Coroner Jason Smith said the overturned raft set off immediate search and rescue operations. A local coroner report said Cesar Albarracin Guncay was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. at the Marvin Gardens trailhead area, after the coroner’s office was called just before 6:15 p.m. to the stretch of river near the D&L Trail at mile 99.

Superintendent Jeff Nichols informed families in a letter Wednesday night that Cesar had died during the trip. WLIW quoted Nichols saying, “There are no words to adequately express the depth of this loss,” as the district described the sixth grader as a cherished member of the school family. Sag Harbor Union Free School District officials also made counselors available to students and staff as classmates and teachers absorbed the news.

Cesar’s death has hit especially hard because the annual sixth-grade rafting outing is a major rite of passage in Sag Harbor, a long-standing part of the closing weeks of the school year. For many families at Pierson Middle School, it is supposed to be a memory-making day that marks the shift into middle-school life. Instead, parents on Long Island and in the wider Suffolk County area are now confronting the safety questions that follow any school-sponsored trip involving water, guides and emergency response far from home.

A community GoFundMe has drawn nearly 1,400 donors and more than $210,000 for Cesar’s family, reflecting the depth of grief across Sag Harbor. One report said Cesar had moved to the United States from Ecuador three years earlier. As the district supports students and staff, the tragedy is likely to put supervision, rafting-vendor vetting, emergency protocols and parent communication under close review before any future student travel.