[1]Searchers look in the river where the 17-year-old boy from Port Orchard was last seen. / Courtesy photo by Lewis County Sheriff’s Office
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office says a 17-year-old boy taking photos with friends slipped and fell into the Ohanapecosh River and was swept away.
It happened about 9:30 a.m. on Friday, near the Cedar Grove Campground off state Route 123 just south of the entrance to Mount Rainier National Park, according to the sheriff’s office.
“He was swept down river while his friends chased him along the river bank,” Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown stated in a news release. “The friends tried to reach out to him with a stick while he was caught in an eddy but he was unable to reach it and was swept further downstream into a whirlpool near a fast moving chute.”
Searchers with the sheriff’s swift water rescue team and rangers from the national park searched for the boy with no success until about 3 p.m. on Friday and then again on Saturday and yesterday, according to Brown.
He is from Port Orchard.
Cascade Dogs Search and Rescue scoured the banks as well, she said.
The sherif’s office indicates the river levels will be monitored and the area checked in hopes of locating him.
The Ohanapecosh is s cold and fast moving river.
Brown said later in the day, deputies were notified of a presumed drowning of an 18 year old Tacoma man at Alder Lake near the end of Pleasant Valley Road in Mineral.
She said that part of Alder Lake is in Pierce County and the incident was handled by the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office. His body was located yesterday, according to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office which assisted.