Man Drowns Trying to Retrieve Toy Boat
A 25-year-old man drowned in Lake Piru on Tuesday afternoon when he swam out to retrieve his radio-controlled model boat after it broke down, authorities said.
The man, whose identity was withheld pending notification of his family, disappeared about 4:45 p.m. near the main boat launch.
Witnesses said the man used a boogie board when he first went in the water but that he appeared to have abandoned it and tried to swim toward the model boat on his own, said Eric Nishimoto, a Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman.
Divers retrieved the victim about an hour later, Nishimoto said.
The drowning was the second this year at Lake Piru and the fifth at the lake since July 4, 1997.
On June 22, the body of 30-year-old Vy Xuan Dang of Garden Grove was found nearly a month after he disappeared while swimming with his family near a dam during the Memorial Day weekend.
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