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Aaron Garcia, of Bend, would have been a senior at Bend High this fall. On Tuesday, teachers remembered him for his many talents as a student.
Andy Tullis / The Bulletin
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The body of a Bend High School student who disappeared Monday while swimming in the Deschutes River near the Bill Healy Memorial Bridge was recovered Tuesday morning by search and rescue crews who had been scouring the area for several hours.
Aaron Garcia, 17, of Bend, attempted to swim from one side of the river to the other at about 6:30 p.m. Monday, according to a news release from the Bend Police Department. He was unable to make it across, began to struggle and slipped below the surface. Garcia was last seen in the water several hundred feet north of the bridge.
Bystanders jumped in the water to help, and police and fire responders arrived on scene shortly after the first 911 calls came in, but they were unable to locate Garcia.
Divers, kayakers and swimmers searched the river until 11 p.m. Monday and started up again at daybreak, said Bend Police Community Liaison Officer Steve Esselstyn.
Under sunny skies, with the temperature moving into the 90s, dozens of Garcia’s family members and friends stood along the banks of the river Tuesday morning, watching and waiting as divers and crews in boats and on land searched for the teen.
At about 11 a.m., the divers and a search and rescue boat converged around an area on the north bank of the river, about 100 yards downstream from the Bill Healy bridge.
“They found him,” shouted some of Garcia’s friends and family members, as they moved closer to the water to get a better look and wrapped their arms around each other.
Garcia’s body was pulled from the water shortly after, and family members gathered, some in tears, to speak with a Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office chaplain.
Esselstyn said the Deschutes River can be unpredictable for swimmers, with changing water flows and rocks and other materials below the surface. He said it could take some time to figure out exactly what happened to Garcia.
“We don’t know how he went under or why he went under,” Esselstyn said. “That’s going to take weeks to find out.”
Family members and friends at the scene declined to comment about Garcia, but some of the teen’s teachers remembered him as a quiet, respectful student with a talent for academics and a passion for dance.
Garcia would have begun his senior year at Bend High this fall.
English teacher Pandie Anderson, who had Garcia in a class last year, said he was a good student who was particularly talented in creative writing and poetry.
In addition to his schoolwork, Anderson said Garcia also had a knack for dancing — a skill she discovered when Garcia and a friend performed a routine in one of her classes. Anderson said Garcia danced regularly with a group of other teens.
“He had great talent as a writer and a student of English, but his hidden talent was dancing,” she said. “He was really quite proficient. … It was kind of neat to see that side of him, to see that type of talent in a kid who tends to be studious and serious,” she said.
Bend High Principal H.D. Weddel said he was in contact with a handful of Garcia’s teachers after learning about the drowning Tuesday. He said they all remembered Garcia as a young man with a bright future ahead of him.
“It hurts to lose one of our students, no question about it. It hurts our whole family at Bend High,” Weddel said. “He’ll be sorely missed. He was a great attribute to our school because of his kindness and how he treated others.”
Garcia is the fifth person to drown in Central Oregon this year. Christopher Lee Vincent, 18, of Redmond, drowned while swimming with friends in Scout Lake earlier this month. Robert Leon Ray Jr., 41, of Bend, drowned during a scuba lesson at Cultus Lake in June. In May, Robert Whitson, 53, of Redmond, disappeared while fishing in Lake Billy Chinook; his body was recovered about three weeks later. In April, 19-year-old Alex Thompson, of Aloha, drowned while trying to cross the Crooked River at Smith Rock State Park.
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