It’s a tragic situation but if they aren’t trained or equipped for a cold-water rescue at night that might have been the right call.

The headline makes it sound like they just didn’t want to be inconvenienced, but the details in the story suggest this was a very dangerous and difficult rescue.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the first responders had (correctly) identified they didn’t have a way to successfully pull it off.

In particular:

1. Cold water is particularly deadly
2. The fact that the person who did enter the water couldn’t find the victim tells us visibility was extremely low and the search area was large
3. There were apparently known, underwater hazards in the way

I wouldn’t be surprised if they were just waiting for sunrise so they could have a more realistic chance of finding him.