FORKS — Searchers discovered with relief early Saturday afternoon that the man they feared had drowned in the rain-swollen Bogachiel River was alive and well in his Forks home.
“It did come to a good ending, and we were all very happy,” said Chief Criminal Deputy Ron Cameron with the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.
“We don’t look at these things as a wild goose chase. That’s not what it’s about.”
The Forks Police Department found Juan Jeronimo-Ortiz, 18, at his home in Forks at about 12:30 p.m., more than six miles from the point at which the car he was in was swept into the river near Bogachiel State Park, Cameron said.
“They really did a good job helping us out,” he said of the Forks police.
At the time, some 20 to 25 members of the sheriff’s rescue team and Clallam County Fire District No. 3 firefighters equipped with underwater cameras were scouring the river banks for signs of Jeronimo-Ortiz, while a helicopter crew had been launched from Coast Guard Group/Air Station Port Angeles to help in the search.
The search began at about 7:30 a.m. when Melanie McCarty, who was also in the car, phoned 9-1-1 to say that she couldn’t find Jeronimo-Ortiz after she escaped from the submerging vehicle.
McCarty, 43, of Neah Bay, was treated and discharged from Forks Community Hospital, possibly for hypothermia, Cameron said.
McCarty and Jeronimo-Ortiz arrived in the car, which belonged to another Forks resident, to the banks of the river sometime after midnight, Cameron said.
They parked underneath the U.S. Highway 101 bridge, fell asleep, and awakened to find the car quickly filling with water.
Jeronimo-Ortiz pushed McCarty out of the driver side door, but the door slammed shut before he could follow, Cameron said.
McCarty told authorities that Jeronimo-Ortiz was in the car when it submerged.
“She was very upset,” Cameron said.
Through interviewing Jeronimo-Ortiz, deputies learned that he escaped through a window.
Cameron said that Jeronimo-Ortiz probably walked home, but because of a language barrier, law enforcement officers were unable to fully substantiate if that was the case.
Jeronimo-Ortiz is from Guatemala, Cameron said, and likely speaks a Mayan dialect.
No one else was in the car.
It remained unclear how the vehicle ended up in the river.
Cameron said it could have rolled into it while they were asleep or perhaps the river, rising because of recent rainfaill, surrounded it.
He said the river had stopped rising Saturday because of a break in the rain, but that people should still be cautious.
Firefighters from the Sequim district assisted because they have technology, such as an underwater camera, that was useful in the search, Cameron said.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
