{"id":75598,"date":"2026-06-05T06:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/75598\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T06:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:21:10","slug":"tributes-after-man-dies-saving-friends-in-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/75598\/","title":{"rendered":"Tributes after man dies saving friends in river"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Tributes have been paid to a man who died after rescuing two friends in a river.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Rushabh Patel, 28, was having a picnic with his wife and 18-month-old daughter on Sunday, 24 May, at Bury Fields in Newport Pagnell, when the tragedy occurred.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">After seeing his friends get into difficulty, he jumped into the River Great Ouse to help save them, but later suffered a cardiac arrest and drowned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">His wife, Mili, 30, from Milton Keynes, said that &#8220;he was a lovely husband and father who always wanted to help everyone&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">She said the family had gone out during the heatwave and &#8220;we were so happy playing with our daughter Vrumi&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But after hearing two of their friends scream while swimming, her husband went to help.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">When he got into difficulty, she said she was &#8220;unable to think&#8221; and &#8220;just hoped he would wake up and he would be OK&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service said that four crews attended the incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In a post on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TVPMiltonKeynes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:social media;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;social media&quot;}\" class=\"link \">social media<\/a>, Thames Valley Police said on arrival, one male was receiving medical attention. He was subsequently airlifted to Milton Keynes University Hospital, where he died on 28 May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Coroners said an inquest into Patel&#8217;s death would be opened &#8220;at some point soon&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Three people posing together in a brightly lit outdoor setting decorated with hanging string lights. A woman is holding a small child dressed in a colourful outfit, while another stands close beside them, all facing the camera. The setting appears festive, with illuminated decorations overhead and gift box displays visible in the background.&#10;\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/a59b3f7743546728f0feebc17134e603.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Mili said that their daughter Vrumi used to wake up each morning at 05:00 to see her father after he had finished his night shift as a forklift driver [Family handout]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">An online fundraiser in memory of Patel has so far raised more than \u00a340,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Mili said she wished that some &#8220;magic would happen and he would come back&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">His funeral takes place today at Crownhill Crematorium in Milton Keynes, and both his parents will be in attendance. He is also survived by a brother who is in India.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Do you have a story suggestion for Beds, Herts or Bucks? 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Rushabh Patel,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30259,17,30262,30260,10204,30261,26871,4213],"class_list":["post-75598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-buckinghamshire-fire-and-rescue-service","tag-canada","tag-friends","tag-mili","tag-milton-keynes","tag-newport-pagnell","tag-river-great-ouse","tag-thames-valley-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}