Volunteer search team aids in searching for 15-year-old's body
4:56 p.m. Friday, November 21, 2008
A search team from Lee’s Summit has come out to Tuttle Creek to help try and find the body of 15-year old Kolten Range.
Officials say the Riley County High School freshman and two friends took an abandoned canoe into the lake.
When the canoe began to fill with water, Range attempted to swim to shore.
The boy’s grandfather says he believes Range, who was a good swimmer, jumped out of the boat to save his friends.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers narrowed down the location of the Leonardville boy to the Stockdale Park area.
"We’ve exhausted all our resources, the local resource, in searching for the young man," Riley County emergency Management Director Pat Collins said.
The Lee’s Summit search team arrived to help Wednesday.
"They got here, they got in the water, they got down to the sight," Collins said. "The winds picked up and they had to leave."
So they came back this morning.
"So far they’ve found some possibilities, but they need to get their more sophisticated sonar out and give it a try now, so that’s what they’re trying to do now, but the wind is kind of hampering our efforts right now," Collins said.
If the rescue team cannot stay to continue searching, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers only has one option left.
"We'll probably go back to shore searches as long as we can," Collins said. "That’s about the only thing we’ve got left."
Because of the weather, they don’t know if the body will ever surface.
Officials say in the summer bodies take eight to ten days to surface.
In the winter, it is 14 to 40 days, if they surface at all.
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