Divers used sonar on rescue boats for a second day in the search for a missing 6-year-old Columbus boy who was swept into the current of the combined Flatrock and East Fork White rivers.
Brendon Sperry, the first grader who was at an overlook area on the northwest side of Mill Race Park, was wading in the river off a sandbar. He was accompanied by his mother, Amanda Sperry, and other family members at about 3 p.m. Thursday, his grandfather said Friday.
Other members of the family outing were two sisters, a brother and a female cousin, Jim Humphrey said.
When Brendon was battling the river current, his 14-year-old cousin grabbed and caught the boy’s red Spiderman swim trunks, the grandfather said. But she was pulled underwater herself by the current and in the panic let go of the boy, Humphrey said.
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The family told first responders than Brendon, who was not wearing a life jacket, had tried to fight the current by dog paddling, but was swept away in the fast-moving water.
Rescuers estimated the depth of the water at 13 to 14 feet where the boy disappeared, just south of the sandbar.
Family members have kept vigil at the park since the accident. Humphrey’s wife Brenda, the boy’s grandmother, and several other family members stayed in a tent in the park overnight Thursday into Friday.
“My wife said she didn’t want to leave him (Brendon) by himself,” Jim Humphrey said.
The family continues to hold out hope that Brendon will be found safe, but Humphrey said they are resigning themselves to the possibility that the boy did not survive.
Brendon, who had moved to Columbus with his family in April, had just finished his kindergarten year at Parkside Elementary School and was looking forward to first grade, his grandfather said.
A photo released by the family shows Brendon trying on a parachute last Saturday during Aviation Day at the Columbus Municipal Airport, where the boy had remarked he might want to be in the military one day like his dad, his grandfather said.
The boy’s father, Sgt. Joseph Sperry, an Indiana National Guardsman, was flying home from Australia on Thursday night and hoped to be in Columbus later Friday, Jim Humphrey said.
Brendon Sperry’s uncle, Specialist Christopher Humphrey, who is serving in the Army Reserves in Iraq, was also on a military plane Friday to bring him to Columbus, he said.
The family expressed its appreciation to American Red Cross volunteers who have been assisting them at Mill Race Park, and the help the agency provided in facilitating the trips home for the boy’s father and uncle even though the boy had not yet been found, Humphrey said.
A gofundme account with a $10,000 goal was set up to assist the family, available by going to gofundme.com and searching for Brendon Sperry.
Friday search efforts
A hovercraft from the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department, operating through the department’s Hovercraft Emergency Response Operations effort, on Friday was searching the riverbanks further south from the sonar area, nosing into downed trees and brush.
Capt. Steve Stafford, who was piloting the hovercraft, said there was a lot of debris floating under the surface of the river — including tree limbs.
DNR public information officer Mark Baker said the agency was using a different type of sonar Friday afternoon — a remotely operated underwater device that has different operating parameters than the tow-type sonar used previously. The search was to continue until dark Friday and then resume early this morning at daylight if the boy hadn’t already been found, he said.
River conditions had improved slightly Friday, but DNR spokesman Jet Quillen said the water was still moving fast and and had only dropped about 6 inches to a foot from the previous day, when it was estimated to be 13 to 14 feet deep in that area of the river.
Searchers continued to focus on an area just south of where the boy was swept into the river as they believe that is the likely location he will be found, Quillen said.
“From our experience, the victim is usually closest to the place he was last seen,” Quillen said.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources asked citizens not to form their own search groups or attempt to go out on the river as that might divert resources from the search for the boy if the volunteers got into trouble, Quillen said.
City officials closed Mill Race Park Thursday afternoon and Friday and planned to have the park remain closed as the search continued. A Saturday event, the Katie McBurnett 5k & 10k, was moved from Mill Race to Noblitt Park as the search continued.
