The body of a 17-year-old who went overboard while rafting in Caswell Memorial State Park over the weekend has been recovered, San Joaquin County Sheriff’s officials said.
The teen went underwater about 4 p.m. Saturday and did not resurface. Search efforts began immediately, authorities said, with deputies from the sheriff’s Boating Safety Unit assisted by drones from the Unmanned Aircraft System Team.
The Ripon Consolidated Fire District said in a social media post that it was tied up on a vegetation fire off Highway 99 and that Manteca fire crews were called in to join the search for the missing youth on the Stanislaus River.
Search efforts were paused at nightfall and resumed Sunday morning. Shortly before 1 p.m., the boy’s body was found, sheriff’s officials said
On Monday, the San Joaquin County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the teen as Gabriel Lechuga Santiago, of Stockton.
Speaking through a translator to KCRA-TV, a woman identified as Gabriel’s mother said she did not know he had gone to the river with friends on Saturday. The woman, whose name was not provided, told the station she wouldn’t have let her son go because he couldn’t swim well.
His friends first alerted her to what had happened.
“They were all kind of going underwater, and they were trying to save him. At one point, they did get him and kind of pushed him, but they didn’t have the strength,” she told the station via a translator. “So he unfortunately drowned, just went under and they didn’t see him again.”
Sheriff’s officials say the incident remains under investigation. The Medical Examiner’s Office did not immediately provide a cause of death.
Caswell Memorial State Park is situated along the Stanislaus River in Ripon, south of Stockton. In addition to other outdoor activities, visitors can raft or swim in the park. But officials warn of deep holes beneath the water’s surface and steep and narrow banks along the river. No lifeguards are on duty.
Prior to this weekend’s death, the Ripon Fire Department had responded to about half a dozen river rescue calls, including one two weeks ago. Ripon Fire Chief Eric DeHart said there is a sign marking the last safe exit point for tubers floating down the river at Caswell Memorial State Park. However, the critical marker is often missed, he said.
“It’s not uncommon, unfortunately,” DeHart told KCRA-TV after a rescue in mid-July. “The river becomes very hard to get out of, the banks are steep, sometimes there’s berry bushes or thick vegetation.”