Searchers found the body of 6-year-old Brendon Sperry at 7:45 a.m. this morning in the river near the Robert Stewart bridge in downtown Columbus.
The boy’s mother and other family members were notified and the boy was transported to Columbus Regional Hospital, said DNR spokesman Jet Quillen.
Members of the Bartholomew County Water Rescue team using the county’s airboat found the boy about a half mile south of the bridge floating in the water, Quillen said. They called for a DNR search boat to recover the body.
Sperry was playing and wading on a sandbar in an overlook area on the northwest side of the park where the Flatrock and East Fork White River join when he was swept away in a strong current at about 3 p.m. Thursday, investigators said.
Brendon, who was at the overlook with his mother Amanda Sperry, two sisters, a brother and a cousin, had ventured out a little too far when the current caught him, investigators said. The 14-year-old female cousin with him grabbed on to his swim trunks, but was pulled underwater by the strong current, and in a panic she let go of him, according to the family.
Mill Race Park remains closed at this time, Quillen said.
For more on this story, see Sunday’s Republic.
