BENTONVILLE, Ark. — An 11-year-old boy died in Bentonville after being swept away in a drain system.
Kevin Boydston with the Bentonville Fire Department (BFD) says he was on the scene Monday, Aug. 29, at a retention pond near the Walton Crossing Apartments.
He explained that crews received a call about a child in the water at 5:36 p.m. He says that within five minutes, two crews were on the scene and that they had been notified on the way there that a 47-year-old woman had gone in after the boy.
When first responders arrived, no one was seen out of the water, leaving them searching the pond and storm drain system for the victims.
"You know the water may look relatively calm on the surface but in and people will not realize that there's a large drain at the bottom of that and it's extremely dangerous," Boydston said. "That's gonna create quite a bit of suction, it's gonna possess quite a bit of power. a typical human cannot fight that"
After 13 minutes of the initial call, Boydston says they found the woman about 20 yards away from the detention pond. 10 minutes later, they found the 11-year-old boy around 500 yards away from the pond.
"It would feel like hundreds of pounds of pressure pushing you through a pipe," said Dan Weese. "There are several turns in that particular pipe where anybody going down it would have stopped and then made a turn. Fairly small space, maybe four feet by four feet with a 24-inch diameter pipe coming into."
Dan Weese is the Deputy Director of Transportation for Bentonville. The city engineer reiterated the importance of water safety, not just for Cars in high water but for anyone with any standing water.
"Just standing water in general I mean there's signs that things can happen to cause water to release when it may not even be raining," said Weese. "I would just avoid, unless you're in a public pool or a place where there's some kind of lifeguards around, don't swim in areas that are just generally open to the public that aren't designed for swimming."
While the city engineer says there are ordinances to protect anyone from entering their retention and attention ponds, he explained that the pond involved was privately owned and not a city-owned pond.
Download the 5NEWS app on your smartphone:
Stream 5NEWS 24/7 on the 5+ app: How to watch the 5+ app on your streaming device
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com.