Man Drowns in Corn Lake

On Saturday, September 10th Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers were dispatched to Corn Lake at around 8:00 p.m. to find a person who was suspected of drowning. The officers were called to the scene because there were reports of a person who fell off their paddle board and hadn’t resurfaced. People who were standing by reported that the victim was not wearing a life jacket at the time he fell off.

The paddle board was found floating in the lake when CPW rangers and officers from the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office arrived, but the missing person did not appear to be there. Around 10 p.m. Members of the CPW Marine Evidence Recovery Team came to help and started using side imaging sonar on their boat to search. On September 11 at 2 a.m. the body was found by Mesa County Search and Rescue workers at a depth of around 7.5 feet.

The Mesa County Coroner has received the corpse in order to identify the person and the cause of death. Life jackets are always required for use of paddleboards and all watercraft in Colorado. Life jackets may seem like they don’t do much, but in reality, it’s the opposite. According to the Coast Guard Recreational Boating Statistics, there were 633 deaths in 2018 on the U.S. waterways and 84% of those deaths were due to not wearing life jackets. I talked to Hank DeFord, a freshman at Palisade and an avid paddleboarder. “I always wear a life jacket to be safe.” Even though some people find them annoying, this hardship provides a reminder of why life jackets are an important asset for a day out at the lake.