BEAVER — An autopsy has determined that the Pierce County man who died in a boating accident on the Sol Duc River last week drowned.
Charles J. “Tony” Boyle’s death is listed as a freshwater drowning, according to the Clallam County Prosecutor’s Office, which also acts as the county coroner.
Boyle, 61, of McKenna was fishing the Sol Duc between Beaver and Sappho on Thursday afternoon with two friends from Roy, also in Pierce County, when their drift boat struck a rock in rapids and filled with water, forcing the men from the vessel.
They swam toward shore, wearing no life jackets but with their neoprene waders keeping them afloat, said Jim Miller, who was rowing the boat that day.
Miller, 45, reached one bank and watched Boyle, a former fishing guide on the Sol Duc, swim toward the opposite shore. Boyle kept his head above water but stopped about two feet from shore, then floated downriver, Miller said.
CPR attempted
He suspected his friend suffered a heart attack. When Miller reached Boyle, he attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but the man did not respond.
Miller and another angler, Brian Doolittle of Bothell, stayed with Boyle’s body while Terry Sebastian, 30, the third man in the boat, went for help with Doolittle’s two fishing companions, who discovered the men on the river after the accident.
