Searchers Find Body of 3rd Youth Killed in Flash Flood

The Sierra Madre Search and Rescue Team on Thursday found the body of a missing San Gabriel Valley teenager swept away Wednesday by floods raging through the Alhambra Wash.

Two other teenagers also lost their lives and two made it to safety after they apparently skirted a fence to wade in puddles in the wash near San Gabriel High School, which they attended.

Los Angeles sheriff’s Deputy Bob Killeen said searchers, including two divers and a helicopter crew, found the body about 12:15 p.m. He said it was hidden under brush about 300 yards downstream from where the bodies of two girls were located Wednesday.

All three teenagers were found in the waters of the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area in Rosemead.

The dead boy was identified as Raul Nahle, 17, of Rosemead.

Los Angeles County coroner’s investigator Mario Sainz on Thursday identified the two dead girls as Griselda Gallo, 14, and Dulce Natalia Castruita, 14, both of Rosemead. Castruita was Nahle’s sister.

Killeen said the two survivors were Efrain Arrellano, 15, who scrambled to safety on his own, and Gina Estrada, 14, who was plucked from the Rio Hondo by rescuers.

Arrellano, who along with Estrada was treated for hypothermia, told KNBC-TV Channel 4 the five had no idea that a wall of water could overtake them as they walked along the wash.

“We just saw the water coming, and it took us,” he said.

A sheriff’s helicopter search unit joined the effort early Thursday morning as stormy skies cleared throughout the Los Angeles Basin. The helicopter scoured the area along the San Gabriel River and Rio Hondo from the oceanfront northward toward San Gabriel, but found nothing. Because Nahle’s body was hidden under thick brush, Killeen said, it was not visible from the air.

About 15 people participated in the broadened search Thursday, Killeen said, including the two-person helicopter crew, two divers from the sheriff’s Emergency Services Detail, the six-member search and rescue team made up of reserve sheriff’s deputies, and deputies from the Temple City sheriff’s station.

Lorena Campos, a junior at San Gabriel High School who shared classes with Nahle, recalled Thursday that he was “very cool and sweet, a cool friend.” She said Nahle had a good sense of humor and “liked to party.”

She said mutual friends had told her that Nahle, a senior, and his sister walked through the wash as their normal route to school, but that she also heard that they may have gone there simply to enjoy the rain.

“He was my great, good friend, and now I can’t believe this has happened,” Campos said tearfully, shortly after hearing that Nahle had been found dead. She said she and several of their friends intended to go to the youth’s home to comfort his mother.

The wash is separated from San Gabriel High School by a chain-link fence. Late Wednesday, school officials removed a ladder that had enabled students to go from the school grounds down into the wash.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Los Angeles-area fire officials reiterated their pleas to children and their parents to stay away from rushing creeks and flood channels during the upcoming rainy season.

“Fast-moving, rising flood waters come unexpectedly,” Los Angeles city Fire Chief Bill Bamattre said, “and can result in tragedy.”