The waters of the McKenzie and Willamette Rivers swallowed two lives Sunday.
University senior Joel Steinfeld and nine friends from the University were floating the Willamette river seeking relief from the heat when they noticed a mysterious piece of flannel fabric bobbing nearby, he said.
His two friends near the fabric joked that it must be a dead body and approached it to investigate. One friend pulled on the fabric and screamed in horror when the corpse rose to the surface.
“The feet and hands were ghostly white,” Steinfeld said. “The face was purple.”
Because next of kin have not been found, police have declined to publicly identify the victims, but one body found in the McKenzie is believed to be a Guatemalan national with possible ties to the University. Hard facts have proved elusive for the other body found in the Willamette. Deputy Sheriff Jon Bock arrived on scene around 2 p.m. Sunday and identified the man as a transient he’d had contact with in the Glenwood area between Springfield and Eugene. He said the body showed no signs of trauma and hadn’t been in the water for long, but how it got there remains unclear. He said the man may have been bathing by the river when the hot temperatures caused his internal functions to falter, perhaps from a stroke or a heart attack, Bock said, but stressed that he doesn’t know what happened to the man.
Across town two hours later, river waters claimed another victim.
Deputy Sheriff Paul Vitus was at the scene on the McKenzie after the 25-year-old Guatemalan man had been dragged from the water.
“It was mass chaos,” Vitus said.
He said a 15-year-old girl was attempting to teach the man to swim. The girl swam from the bank to a gravel bar and looked back to see the man flailing wildly as the water engulfed him. She swam toward him to try and help, Vitus said, but soon she too began to drown. The girl’s mother saw her go under and jumped in to save her, battling the water for her daughter’s life, Vitus said. The mother’s efforts paid off. The girl was rushed to Sacred Heart Medical Center, but the Guatemalan man was already dead when police arrived, Vitus said.
He said more than 500 people, by a conservative estimate, had gathered on the banks to escape the sweltering heat that choked the region Sunday, but most bathers failed to notice the drowning people.
“With all the hundreds of people,” Vitus said, “you take care of your own.”
Sgt. Spence Slater of the Lane County Sheriff’s Office said police have not confirmed the man’s
identity through photo or family identification, but are confident they know his name. They are in contact with the Guatemalan consulate attempting to find his next of kin.
“The boat people were busy. We had a hot weekend,” Slater said. “We get one back and one we don’t.”
Contact the news reporter at [email protected]