There’s no easy way to say this, but sometimes life just doesn’t hand you a very good card at all. Take, for instance, one couple in particular who were getting ready for their engagement, and they were posing for their engagement photos.
24-year-old Joao Guilherme Torres Fadini and 25-year-old Larissa Campos were getting ready for the first day of the rest of their lives, and they were going to celebrate their engagement by taking a trip to the beach at Itupararanga Dam, which is nestled within the Sorocaba River in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo.
Joao was a young, but up-and-coming businessman, and he had been described by all of his friends as one with many hobbies, most notably being that of an excellent swimmer. He was photographed giving his fiancee a kiss on his forehead just FIVE MINUTES before something really terrible had happened to him.
Even though the day would begin as one of the best days of Larissa’s life, it would quickly become one of the worst days of her life. She might have been looking forward to marrying Joao and starting a life with him, but then he went into the river to swim with his friends. Unfortunately, it was the last time that she would see him alive. It happened very quickly and it was completely unexpected.
“After we kissed, he took his shirt off and he went into the water with our friends,” she said on a news report. “He wanted me to wait for him and he told everyone that he loved me. Everyone decided to do a swimming race to the next embankment, and after just about everyone else had given up, it was done to him and my brother-in-law Gabriel.”
Joao was always a real go-getter, so he refused to give up. Gabriel pulled ahead, but Joao worked harder to keep up with him. It was then that he suddenly was nowhere to be found. The group simply couldn’t figure out what happened to this normally good swimmer. After calling the ambulance, the authorities sent in divers and other rescue workers from the Sao Roque Fire Department to try to find him. It was looking grim, but they still didn’t give up. They also brought in experts from the military and the Sorocaba Institute of Criminalistics to help save him. However, it was too late. Once they finally recovered him, he was already gone.
“The firemen almost immediately started on that way,” Larissa said. “However, we searched everywhere, and we just couldn’t find him. It took about an hour and a half, but the firemen ended up finding his body.”
What makes this truly sad is that Larissa and Joao had already had a date in mind for their wedding. They were going to get married in May, and one of the main reasons for that is because Joao had told Larissa he was eager to start a family with her and he couldn’t wait any longer than just May.
“He was actually planning to officially propose to me, and he described the proposal as something that ‘would be epic’ and he even had a folder with all kinds of different ideas to make the day special,” she said. “About all I can think about and dream about would be him. But all I have left now are just memories. I will never experience that big day with him.”
The couple hasn’t been together that long, just less than two years. If they had made it to September 8th, it would have been their two-year dating anniversary. Unfortunately, that wasn’t meant to be, as he passed away on August 31st, 2020. “We were very intensely in love,” she said. “We did love life together.”
“All of us are very numb and disturbed about this,” she added. “However, we do have the firm hope that he is going to be our strength and continue to take care of us.”
The adventurous couple were planning on backpacking across Colombia as a honeymoon. This couple had the whole world in front of them, but it was stolen away from them in a heartbeat and in nothing more than a freak accident. It just goes to show you just how special life is. At this present writing, it isn’t clear if his passing is being investigated further.
