24-Year-Old Man Drowns After Kissing Fiancée a Final Time: 'All I Think, Dream... Is Him'
A couple's trip to Brazil celebrate their engagement took a tragic turn last month when the groom-to-be drowned just minutes after taking a final photograph with his fiancée, according to a local report.
João Guilherme Torres Fadini and Larissa Campos were visiting Itupararanga Dam in the state of São Paulo on Aug. 31 to celebrate their upcoming marriage, according to a translation from G1 News. In an interview with the station, Campos said Fadini kissed her on the forehead for a photograph, then jumped into the water to race friends to the other side of the dam.
"After the [picture], he took off his T-shirt and went into the water with our friends," she recalled. "They started to swim fast to reach another shore. Almost everyone gave up and only he and my brother-in-law Gabriel were left."
Both Fadini and Gabriel ran into distress while racing in the dam and called out for help. Gabriel reached safety, but Fadini reportedly disappeared under the water.
Campos told G1 that the group searched for Fadini until emergency services arrived, but the 24-year-old was found dead an hour and a half later. According to Campos, Fadini knew how to swim, and this was the first time they visited the dam.
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Instagram João Guilherme Torres Fadini
Campos said Fadini recently told her he wanted to move up their wedding date to start a family.
"It was already scheduled, but on Sunday night he wanted to go ahead and get married eight months ahead of schedule," she told G1. "He was planning the official engagement proposal, which, as he said, 'would be epic.'"
"He had even created a folder with several ideals that I would use on the big day," Campos added.
On his Instagram page, Fadini posted dozens of pictures with Campos, showing them enjoying dinner dates or time with friends. According to his pictures, Fadini graduated from college earlier this year.
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"All I think, dream and plan is him," Campos told G1 of Fadini. "Now, I only have memories of everything we lived and dreamed of living together. We were always very intense and with a lot of love. We were an intense couple and in love with each other and with life. "
On Sept. 1, a day after Fadini's death, Campos posted an emotional message to Instagram about her grief.
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"Many say that after a loss, it is necessary to get up, shake off the dust and move on. Indeed it is, but at the right time!" she wrote, according to a translation. "What is needed now is to live the mourning, and in the most intense way we can, because stifling sadness or tears can be harmful to our existence, which, as we learned, is so brief!"
"Let us live the sadness, let us feel it to the last drop, in our time, in our own way," Campos said in the post, which included a picture of Fadini smiling. "Because only in this way do we overcome, but we truly overcome... After our time of mourning has passed, let us not be afraid to contemplate the flowers again, to start over, to relearn. The loss suffered can turn into a gain. Just allow us to receive the teachings contained in each line."
