Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY -- Divers are searching for a 7-year-old boy who is feared to have drowned in a canal near the Jordan River.
Authorities say Trejon Brown and some older friends were going to a store a few blocks from their apartment complex about 6:30 Saturday evening. Trejon was using a pipe as a bridge to walk across the surplus canal when he fell into the water.
The two boys who were with him, as well as a man driving by, saw him fall.
The boy made it under a bridge onto the other side of Redwood Road and was last seen near the intersection of Redwood Road and California Avenue. The surplus canal breaks off from the Jordan River and eventually reaches the Great Salt Lake.
Salt Lake firefighters got the 911 call around 6:40. They were on the water in a raft within 15 minutes but could not locate the boy in the immediate area. They searched the banks of the canal to the airport and are now using divers under the bridge at California Avenue. They also are using boats to drag the canal.
Scott Freitag of the Salt Lake City Fire Department said, "The dive team from Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office is in the water. They've got lights and they're searching areas of the canal that are areas of focus, where he most likely may be. We've been out here for three hours, and we're still within a small window of opportunity for cold water drownings. Obviously as each minute goes by it becomes more grave for the outcome. But we won't leave until we find him."
The boys' family told KSL 5 they are holding out hope for a miracle that Trejon will be found alive. But they realize that hope fades as time passes. They say the boy has lived in the neighborhood only for about a month.
Searchers planned to keep looking Saturday night and return Sunday morning.
E-mail: spenrod@ksl.com
