GLENWOOD SPRINGS — Glenwood Springs Middle School student Richard Irving Buchanan, 12, is feared to have drowned while tubing on the Colorado River about 4 p.m. Sunday.
Witnesses on the river Sunday reported seeing the youngster off his tube and struggling in the water near the South Canyon Bridge, and then seeing him sink below the surface, said Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario.
Garfield County Search and Rescue teams spent four hours Sunday evening looking for the youth, combing the banks on both sides of the river and probing deep pools, and resumed the search again Monday.
Friends of Buchanan’s family, frustrated that the search did not resume earlier on Monday, put together a group of volunteer searchers to comb the river on Monday afternoon.
Richard, an immigrant from Jamaica who would be in seventh grade this fall, was tubing with his stepfather, Tim Heiney, and his sister, Rischma Buchanan, 19.
His mother, Sharline Heiney, said Richard did know how to swim. But he was not wearing a life jacket and had lost his flip-flops earlier in the trip, she said.
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