Metro

Columbia student drowns while kayaking

A Columbia University medical student died after falling into the water during a kayaking accident in upstate New York.

Brooklyn native Jonathan Tang, 24, was kayaking on Stewart’s Pond in Hadley on Saturday when he apparently fell overboard, according to the Saratoga County sheriff’s office.

Witnesses saw him struggling before disappearing under the water. Deputies said he was not wearing a life vest.

His body was recovered Sunday.

Tang was staying at a rented home near the pond with several other Columbia University medical students, officials said.

“Jonathan was known to many students as a wholeheartedly generous friend who exuded positive energy in everything he did,” Associate Dean Lisa A. Mellman told the Columbia Spectator.

Tang was an undergraduate at NYU, where he was a fencer, before attending medical school.