A teenage boy drowned while trying to swim across the Lewis River on Sunday afternoon.
The Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office was dispatched at about 2 p.m. to respond to a report of a boy missing in the water near the 1300 block of South Pekin Road west of La Center.
Police learned that the missing teen had been swimming across the river with two other boys when he told them he was getting cold and having trouble swimming. Then the boy went under the water and disappeared, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.
His friends tried to find him but couldn’t, deputies said.
Cowlitz and Skamania county dive teams, police and fire personnel from Woodland, Clark County Fire & Rescue, a small plane and a Clark County fire boat equipped with sonar all responded to the incident, officials said.
Members of the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office dive team recovered the boy’s body Sunday evening near the spot where he disappeared, the sheriff’s office said. His name was not released pending family notification.
His body was sent to a medical examiner to determine his official cause of death, but no criminal activity is suspected, the news release said.
Although temperatures climbed into the low 90s Sunday, the temperature of the river was only in the upper 50s when the boy tried to cross it, said Tim Dawdy, Clark County Fire & Rescue battalion chief. He added that the river’s current is swift in the area where the boy disappeared.
“The water is cold, so it saps your energy,” Dawdy said. He added that people who are good at swimming in a heated pool might overestimate their swimming abilities in Northwest waterways.
As the outdoor swimming season takes off, Dawdy recommended that people wear life jackets and that they don’t overestimate their swimming abilities.
Although drugs or alcohol are not a known factor in Sunday’s drowning, Dawdy also said people should avoid using them before swimming.
Jennifer Krieger and Rob Oster of The Columbian contributed to this story.
