The state’s Underwater Recovery Team is still searching this afternoon (June 1) for 14-year-old Devon Cotton of Pacific, one day after he disappeared in the Big River near the Rockford Beach River access in House Springs.
An officer from the team, part of the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Marine Division, was on the Big River at 6 a.m. this morning using sonar to try to locate the boy, spokesman Cpl. Juston Wheetley said.
“He (the officer) was able to pin down some locations of interest. We have a dive team suiting up now to look at those areas,” Wheetley said about 11:30 a.m. today.
Cotton, Austin Dixon, 17, of Crystal City and another young man were swimming just east of the dam Wednesday afternoon (May 31), crossing the river to the rock bluff, when Cotton began to struggle and all three were swept into the current, Wheetley said.
At 3:53 p.m., the High Ridge Fire Protection District got a call for a possible drowning, and firefighters arrived on the scene at 3:57 p.m., said Ron Tisius, High Ridge Fire public information officer.
Firefighters from the Cedar Hill and Eureka fire protection districts joined High Ridge Fire crews, and they spent Wednesday afternoon and evening combing the Big River for Cotton. The state Underwater Recover team, which has taken over the search, joined the firefighters Wednesday evening, and the crews searched until it was too dark to see, Tisius said.
The search resumed early this morning.
Dixon, who was swimming with Cotton when he disappeared, explained what happened.
“The water looked calm and we were trying to get to the wall,” Dixon said. “He (Cotton) started floating on his back.”
Dixon said he reached for Cotton when he started heading over the dam.
“I grabbed onto him as long as I could,” Dixon said. “The current took a dip and ran us into a rock that split us apart.”
Dixon was pulled under the current and when he came up, he saw Cotton next to the wall, he said.
“Then I was pulled back under, and when I came up, he was gone,” Dixon said.
Wheetley said the placid surface of the river above the dam is misleading.
“It’s glasslike, calm, but the current underneath is strong and leads to very treacherous rapids where there are eddies that even experienced swimmers can’t get out of,” Wheetley said.
Tisius said the current becomes “a hydraulic” where the water “spins and rotates.”
“When items or people get too close to those, they can grab them, pull them down and hold them down,” Tisius said.
Dixon and the third young man made it through the rapids and swam to the north side of the river bank and got out of the stream. Dixon said the firefighters were on the scene almost immediately and told them to stay on that side of the river.
Tisius said an emergency medical crew from the Big River Ambulance District arrived and attended to the young men on the beach.
“They checked them out,” Big River Chief Gary Prasuhn said. “No one was transported from the scene.”
Dixon said he had several scrapes, cuts and bruises from the incident.
Firefighters had several boats in the water and searchers focused on the area where the boy was last seen, Tisius said.
“We had multiple boats including one downriver to scan the river there,” he said.
Divers went into the stream to search for Cotton and assess the patterns in the current to determine the direction the boy might have gone, Tisius said.
“The water is unpredictable there,” he said.
The High Ridge Fire Protection District’s water rescue teams train on the Big River at Rockford Beach “constantly,” Tisius said.
Several factors, including a new dam that was damaged from recent flooding and current high water conditions, have changed the dynamics of the river, he said.
“It’s a river. You don’t know what it’s going to do,” Tisius said.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office also assisted with the call.