HYDERABAD: Two medical students from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh drowned in the Dnieper river in Ukraine while trying to save a drowning friend.
Pinninti Shivakanth Reddy and Ashok were MBBS students at Zaporizhia State Medical University. Shivakanth Reddy was a resident of Kuntloor in Hayatnagar near Hyderabad and Ashok was a native of Railway Kodur in Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh.
According to information reaching here, the two were in a group of six students who went to the Dnieper riverside on Tuesday. While Shivakanth Reddy and Ashok were sitting on the river bank, their friends went over to swim. One of them, Mukesh, started to drown.
''Shivakanth noticed Mukesh drowing and jumped into the water and managed to rescue him. However, he started to drown himself. Ashok jumped in to rescue Shivakanth. But both of them drowned. Their bodies were retrieved after several hours,'' Shivakanth Reddy's family said in Hyderabad.
Shivakanth Reddy was to graduate as a doctor in two months and planned to go to Germany for higher studies.
His family said arrangements are being made to send the youngsters’ bodies to Hyderabad.