Man drowns in Deschutes River in Bend

(Update: Adding location)

A police drone helped searchers recover the body of a man who drowned after jumping from a footbridge into the Deschutes River Sunday afternoon.

Bend Fire Department rescuers, as well as police and Deschutes County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue, were dispatched shortly before 4 p.m. to a reported water rescue situation at the First Street Rapids, said Battalion Chief Dave Howe.

Witnesses told first responders a male in his 60s had jumped from the footbridge into the river, one of many who were at the river Sunday on a hot summer day with temperatures in the 90s.

The witnesses said the man surfaced once, then went underwater and did not resurface, Howe said.

More than a dozen members of the three agencies, including a swift-water dive team, searched both banks of the river for a half-mile downstream from the bridge without initial success, Howe said.

A Bend police unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, or drone) was launched and was able to find the victim in the water, several hundred yards downstream, the fire official said.

SAR and Bend crews recovered the body of the man, whose name was being withheld until family was notified.