River patrol deputies were dispatched to the Columbia River near Ackerman Island tonight after receiving reports that a man swam out to retrieve a boat but didn’t return.
Police were told that a man in his 50s was on the island with his family when his boat became unanchored from the shore shortly before 9 p.m. and he swam out after it, according to a press release from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. The man drifted into the river channel and disappeared from view, the sheriff’s office said.
Boats from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and the Vancouver, Gresham and Portland fire departments responded but had not found the man as of 11 p.m.
