A teenager who went missing while swimming in a Sierra Nevada lake was found dead Tuesday by divers, the El Dorado County sheriff’s office said.
His companions had called 911 around 5 p.m. Monday to report that Mekhi Clay, 19, of Carmichael, had disappeared in the water while attempting to swim to an island in Jenkinson Lake.
A dive team searched until nightfall Monday, then returned Tuesday morning. The young man’s body was discovered around 10:30 a.m., the sheriff’s office said.
The lake, at 3,500 feet elevation, is in the Sly Park Recreation Area, south of Pollock Pines.
Clay, a 2022 graduate of Del Campo High in Fair Oaks, was on a camping trip with friends from the school’s wrestling team, relatives told TV station KOVR. It was not a school-sanctioned trip.
Cold and fast-running water in California rivers during the snowpack melt has prompted closures and warnings, and at least 15 people have drowned or disappeared in the state’s rivers since mid-April. El Dorado County emergency officials said the cold water also creates hazards for swimmers in the region’s lakes.
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