Teen Dies Trying To Swim Across River

It was a line from a Clint Eastwood Western where the lead character said…”A man’s got to know his limitations.” But it proved true when authorities say a 15-year-old Washington state boy died trying to swim across a river in his home state.

It was almost as if it happened here on the Kern River where hundreds of people have died since 1968.

It  happened Saturday evening when Longview resident Zander Medina and two friends decided to try swimming across the Cowlitz River, according to the Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office. The trio made it about halfway across when they “discovered how strong the current was,” a sheriff’s spokesman says. Although they agreed to turn back, only two of them made it to shore, the sheriff’s office reveals.

Searchers with the Cowlitz Dive Team recovered Medina’s body shortly after the incident, the spokesman says. His official cause of death is pending an autopsy, per sheriff’s officials.

-Tony Lee