Turkish professor drowns during Bodrum vacation

A university professor on vacation in Bodrum has drowned after becoming caught in a fishing net while diving. It is believed that Professor Atilla Ülkü was trying to retrieve his fishing spear during a dive when he became tangled in a fishing net. Ülkü, a professor at the department of thermodynamics at Karadeniz Technical University, was vacationing in Bodrum with his wife, Karin Ülkü. She said she was sunbathing on the beach while her husband went spear fishing. When he did not return two-and-a-half hours later, Ülkü said she and some locals went looking for her husband. The gendarmerie and fishermen also joined in on the search.

Five hours later a local fisherman found the body seven meters below the surface, tangled in a fishnet.

Karin Ülkü said her husband was an experienced diver and that she was surprised to hear he had gone diving without an air tank. "It's almost as if he went knowing he would die," Ülkü said. "How could he have made such a careless mistake? Six months ago he underwent bypass surgery. I was taking care of him," she said.

Professor Ülkü's body will be sent to the İzmir Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) for an autopsy and then to Bursa for burial.


/World Bulletin/