Search resumes for boy, two men swept into in Milwaukee drainage ditch
By Caroline Reinwald
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MILWAUKEE (WISN) — The Milwaukee Fire Department resumed its search Tuesday morning for an 11-year-old boy and two men in their late 30s who they said went into the water in a drainage ditch.
They said Tuesday morning it is now a recovery operation.
Fire Department Chief Aaron Lipski said Tuesday the dive team and heavy urban rescue searched three tunnels at 27th Street and Loomis Road, 900 feet in length each, but they didn’t find anything.
They were then moving to next set of tunnels near 31st and Kinnickinnic. Crews then moved to the area near Pulaski Pool.
Lipski said survival during conditions Monday night would have be difficult
Milwaukee police said they got calls around 6 p.m. Monday for a boy who fell into the water near 25th Street and Tripoli Avenue, which they said is a part of the Kinnickinnic River.
Police said the two men jumped in after the boy to rescue him, but all three were swept away.
Witnesses told WISN 12 News one of the men was the boy’s father and a neighbor.
No one has seen the three people since, according to first responders.
Rescue crews checked every manhole in the area and were stationed outside the tunnels near 27th Street and Morgan Avenue, as well as 27th Street and Loomis Road.
The assistant fire chief said the water was too deep and fast-moving for divers. He said there was also a risk of debris in the tunnel, which made going in with a raft too dangerous.
Crews temporarily called off the search around 9:30 p.m. Monday.
The assistant chief said they would resume again at first daylight in the morning, once it was bright enough to see. He said since the rainfall caused the water to rise, he hopes by morning it might go down enough for crews to safely venture into the tunnels.
It’s unclear why the boy was near the water in the first place.
Rescue crews used drones to check the tunnels at their openings, buoys to gauge how fast the water was and where debris may stop someone and stretched ropes for the victims to grab hold of along the water route.
The assistant fire chief said it is possible the victims could suffer from hypothermia overnight, because of how cold the water is.
The Milwaukee Fire Department dive and urban rescue team was working on the scene, as well as Milwaukee Police Department’s underwater dive team. Both were working with municipal sewer crews to learn where and when the tunnels turn along the water route.
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