Rescue teams searching for 7-year-old who fell into canal

Large, square spotlights lined the banks of a canal late Saturday as divers continued to comb the swift, cold waters for a 7-year-old Salt Lake boy who was seen falling in.

The 60 police officers and rescuers looking for Trejon Brown in a canal near California Avenue and Redwood Road planned to continue with the search until he was found, Salt Lake City Fire Department spokesman Scott Freitag said. Divers have lights on their helmets and underwater lamps. Also, rescuers have considered using infrared light that can sense the boy from his body heat. About 6:30 p.m. Saturday Trejon was playing with two friends at the canal, which is a surplus waterway for the Jordan River that flows from near Glendale Park (about 2300 South at the Jordan River) to the Great Salt Lake. Several motorists on Redwood Road and California Avenue saw Trejon walking on a water pipe, which is about a foot in diameter and crosses the canal. About halfway across the pipe, Trejon slipped and fell in, Freitag said.

Motorists saw Trejon go under one bridge at the Redwood-California intersection, but then he went into the water and hasn't been seen since.

Trejon lives just a few blocks from the canal, but he is unfamiliar with the area because he just moved to the neighborhood from a residence in downtown Salt Lake City. His family waited among the rescuers Saturday night, distressed.

"Last I knew, he went to the store," said Trejon's grandfather Wilbert Miller.

Trejon's family is hopeful that he will be found. "He's strong, and he fights everything," said Trejon's 13-year-old sister, Dane, one of Trejon's seven siblings.

The family says Trejon knows how to swim. "He taught himself, he and his brother," Miller said.

Rescuers have searched the canal from the area Trejon fell in northward — the direction the canal flows — to nearly the Davis County line. "We actually have airport police walking the canal," Freitag said of the portion of the canal that runs through Salt Lake City International Airport property.

Using formulas that consider the speed of the water, rescuers are fairly certain Trejon isn't farther than a half mile from where he fell, and rescuers set up a net that will catch him when he reaches the area.

The boy is black and is wearing red shorts and black sneakers.

"The water is very dark and murky" and full of debris and plant life on the banks, Freitag said. In some areas, including the area where the boy slipped in, the canal water is as deep as 12 feet.

Nancy Lovato's husband is a tow-truck driver and was in the area, watching Trejon and his friends. "The kid was crossing the river on the pipe," she said. The area has no fencing to protect people from the canal, and Lovato, who has lived in the area for years, said it's always been that way.

Melva Cruz drove past just after Trejon slipped. "The kids were walking back and forth back and forth to see if he came under the bridge," she said.

Cruz and her family continued to drive, thinking the kids were looking for an animal that got into the water. Then she asked her husband to turn the car. By the time they returned to the scene, police were cordoning off the area.

Teams include a dive team from the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office and a swiftwater rescue team from Salt Lake City, which is using three watercraft to search the canal.

"Right now, it is a search and rescue," Freitag said. "We will do that until he is found or recovered."

E-MAIL: lhancock@desnews.com