POLAND – A 14-year-old Poland girl drowned Friday while swimming in the Little Androscoggin River.

Abby Silvermane, a ninth-grader at Poland Regional High School, was swimming near her home at the Poland Country Trailer Park when she slipped beneath the water’s surface. She was apparently trying to reach an island but never made it, police said.

Two friends were with her, one in the water and one on the bank. When Abby didn’t come up, a friend searched the murky, fast-moving water. Another screamed and ran for help.

“The cries were terrible,” said Wednesday Bradbury, who lives in the closest trailer. She immediately called police at 6:03 p.m. and ran to the riverbank where Abby had disappeared.

“I’ve never run so fast in my life,” she said.

A few minutes after Bradbury’s call, officers began arriving. A rescuer from the Androscoggin County Sheriff Department’s dive team pulled the girl from 25 feet of water at 6:56 p.m.

By then, more than two dozen emergency workers from throughout the area were at the scene. Paramedics administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation. A waiting LifeFlight helicopter rushed her to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, where doctors continued to try to save her. She was pronounced dead minutes later, Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Capt. Raymond Lafrance said.

“That river is not forgiving,” said Jose Arroyo, a neighbor who stood nearby with a small crowd. Abby baby-sat his children and others, several of whom held on to parents and wept as they watched the rescuers.

Sheriff’s Deputy Dennis Sampson was the first rescuer at the scene. Immediately, he threw on a life jacket and dove in.

“He tried to find her,” Lafrance said. “A trooper from the state police came right after him. They both tried to find her.”

The dive team followed, and Auburn police brought an aluminum boat. The Maine Warden Service also responded. All searched the bend in the river, just a few hundred yards from the Empire Road and the nearby Minot Country Store.

They found the girl in cold water where the current was strong, Lafrance said.

“Maybe the current held her down,” he said. “We don’t know.”

Abby lived in the park for years with her two sisters, Kelli, 13, and Amber, 16, and their mother and father.

The kids in the park all knew Abby.

“It’s a really close-knit group,” said Bradbury, who tried to warn them away from the water.

“You try to tell them to stay away from the river,” she said. Denis Marcotte, another neighbor who knew Abby, said he was surprised that the kids ever gathered there.

“It’s a nasty river,” Marcotte said.

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