A 17-year-old boy who drowned in Lake Tapps over the weekend went underwater while trying to retrieve a football, Pierce County sheriff’s officials said Monday.
Robert L. Harris of Federal Way was at the park for a family picnic Saturday. When he didn’t resurface about 5:45 p.m., people began yelling for help and caught the attention of two deputies working nearby.
The deputies took a sheriff’s boat to the spot where Harris was last seen and dropped a buoy before returning to shore to get the dive team.
A diver found the teen about 6:30 p.m. His body was 190 feet from shore and 10 feet underwater in an area with several submerged stumps, sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said.
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