The search for a possible drowning victim in Center Lake was called off at 10:15 p.m. Sunday after nearly two hours of rescue efforts failed to turn up the alleged drowning victim or any evidence of a drowning.
Warsaw Police Department Public Information Officer and Det. Ryan Coble said Kosciusko County Central Dispatch received a call at 8:25 p.m. Sunday from a group of men at the Center Lake Pavilion who saw a large group of juveniles jumping off the pier. The caller said one of the kids in the group didn’t come up after jumping into the water.
No other calls of a drowning at the lake were made, no one else reported seeing anything and there were no missing children reported but “we went into dive mode,” Coble said.
The alleged drowning victim was a 5- or 6-year-old male, possibly wearing a blue shirt and floatation devices on his arms.
Four divers went out into the water, and a boat was put into the water with a 360 Sonar. A site scanner also was used in the rescue efforts. The search ran out 45 feet from the pier and four divers went through full tanks of air.
Coble said no floatation devices, clothes or sign of anything turned up.
After two hours of searching, Coble said they were past the point of rescue so the search team moved into recovery mode.
He also said no one from that group of juveniles that were on the pier reported anyone missing.
Coble said they called it at 10:15 p.m. as a “no report” and are confident nothing was found.
Along with the WPD, the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory, Indiana State Police, Indiana Department of Natural Resources conservation officers and Lutheran EMS responded to the scene.
Unless a child is reported missing or new information comes to light, Coble said Sunday night that there was no plans to put a boat back into the water Monday.
