La Plata County Search and Rescue volunteers continued searching the Upper Animas River on Saturday but did not recover the body of the 19-year-old who drowned Thursday.
Butch Knowlton, director of the Office of Emergency Management for the county, said the victim was Cody Shane Pierce of Albuquerque. A student at the University of New Mexico, he was a staff member at Tall Timber Resort and was hiking near the resort in the area of Tank Creek with some fellow staff members Thursday.
“He wanted to cool off and told them he was going jump in,” Knowlton said. “They tried to talk him out of it, but they didn’t really think he was going to jump in. And then he did.”
Knowlton said investigators from the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office had spent most of Saturday interviewing Pierce’s companions. The investigators ruled the drowning an accident.
“Very soon after, and let me emphasize very soon after, he jumped in, Cody was in trouble,” he said. “They tried to run alongside him, but it wasn’t long before the fast water outpaced them.”
Knowlton put some objects in the Animas on Saturday, and he said they moved 100 feet in eight seconds.
Searchers are facing several challenges in the area, including the high volume of water and the fact that it is carrying a lot of silt, so there is limited visibility. There is no safe way to put people on the ground in the Rockwood Gorge, where 300-foot cliffs go straight down to the water’s edge and the channel narrows significantly so they can only search from the air, Knowlton said.
The search will continue Sunday, with the Sheriff’s Office’s K9 Unit and another sweep with volunteers in rafts and canoes from Bakers Bridge to Trimble Bridge.
Knowlton also asked that anyone recreating on the river, whether they’re in rafts, kayaks, tubes or on paddleboards stay on the lookout for Pierce’s body.
In 1996, the body of drowning victim Michael Miller was not found in the Upper Animas for four months. While Knowlton hopes this search doesn’t take that long, he said it’s possible.
“We’re going to give it several more days for this family,” he said. “We want to bring Cody home.”
abutler@durangoherald.com
An earlier version of this story contained an correct the age for Cody Shane Pierce.
