Search of canal is ongoing

Authorities continued their effort Monday to recover the body of an 8-year-old boy presumed drowned in a surplus canal to the Jordan River while family members gathered along the banks waiting for any word about their loved one.

"Not so good right now," was Joann Brown's reply when asked how she was holding up.

Brown is the grandmother of Trejon Fite, the young boy missing since Saturday night, when he fell into the swift moving canal while playing with friends on a large pipe that stretches from one shore to the other.

Trejon was throwing rocks into the water along with other boys, according to Brown. The boys reportedly were grabbing rocks from the shore, walking out to the middle of the pipe over the canal, and dropping them in the water. On one trip, however, as Trejon turned to go back to the shore, he fell backward into the water, she said.

On Monday, the effort to recover Trejon's body had broken into two search areas. There are two overpasses at the intersection where search crews were looking. Redwood Road crosses the canal going north and south, and California Avenue crosses the canal east and west where the canal bends and changes direction.

There was conflicting information about where Trejon was last seen. Some people said the boy was last seen prior to going under the Redwood bridge. But another passer-by said he saw the boy between the two bridges, said Salt Lake County Sheriff's Lt. Don Hutson.

Salt Lake Fire crews combed the banks of the canal leading to the Redwood bridge Monday, using probe sticks to check the area closest to the shore.

The Salt Lake County Search and Rescue Team, along with divers from the Department of Public Safety, used sonar to check the area from the California Avenue bridge to an area about a mile-and-a-half away, where a net was placed. Searchers are estimating the distance Trejon may have been swept away, and they set up a net over the weekend in an area where they believed the boy wouldn't have reached yet.

"It's much more efficient (than using divers), because the visibility in the water is virtually non-existent," Hutson said.

The methodical sweep of the canal floor using the sonar equipment takes time. Searchers are only able to go about 100 feet every 60 to 90 minutes, the lieutenant said.