By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
A raft found on a gravel bar in the Chehalis River at Dryad looks like the one used Saturday by a rafter who hasn’t been heard from since then, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.
[1]Daniel Kuhn
Daniel Kuhn, 24, of Olympia, was among the many participating in the annual Pe Ell River run. He was last seen on the river about 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.
“What with when he was last seen, we’re finding it grim,” his friend Tony Abbott said today. “We’re hoping he’s still there, but … yeah.”
The sheriff’s office took a missing person report on Monday from friends of Kuhn’s. He never retrieved his truck which he had left parked at the gas station on state Route 6 at Highway 603.
Kuhn is a member of the National Guard, with the group based at the Centralia Armory, according to Abbott.
“Him and I used to live together in Longview,” Abbott said. “Then he lived with us off and on while I lived in Chehalis.”
His Olympia roommate is another National Guard member who hasn’t seen him either, Abbott said.
Sheriff’s Cmdr. Steve Aust said Kuhn was last seen near the Elk Creek Road Bridge and fell behind his group of friends. He said he’d meet them downriver near the Chandler Road bridge, according to Aust.
When he didn’t show up by 8 p.m., the group departed, thinking he might have left with other friends, Aust said.
Searchers were on the water yesterday with kayaks, but no formal searches are underway today, according to Aust.
The sheriff’s office learned yesterday afternoon a local man found the raft on Sunday near the Chandler Road Bridge.
“People with him said that looks like his,” Aust said.
The sheriff’s office has asked land owners in the area to be on the lookout, Aust said.
Kuhn was in a tiny raft, had been drinking and had no life jacket, Aust said.
“With him being gone four days now …” he said.
It’s possible divers may go looking under log jams on Sunday, but that would be a recovery mission, according to Aust.
Abbott, who lives in Grand Mound and works in Curtis said Kuhn came here from Michigan four or five years ago. They both were in the National Guard, so they had that in common, he said.
Kuhn served in Iraq in 2008 and 2009, Abbott said.