AP News, May 17th, 2007
Searchers found the body of a 2-year-old Wednesday in the South Platte River, several miles downstream from where he was swept away from his mother during a flash flood.
Jose Matthew Jauregui Jr.'s mother, identified by relatives as Elsha Guel, collapsed in tears as the boy's body was carried to a waiting vehicle.
A construction worker spotted the body seven to 10 miles downstream from where the boy disappeared Monday night, authorities said. Floodwaters engulfed Jose and his mother as they were walking on a bike path beside the river.
Rescuers lifted the body to a railroad bridge about five feet over the river and covered it with tarp.
"It's a sad day and a happy day," said Julie Guzman, Jose's great-aunt. "It's a sad day that we found him dead. It's a happy day that we found him."
Guel had been out for her regular stroll with her son along a bike path that follows the South Platte downtown when a sudden thunderstorm dumped more than an inch of rain and sent a torrent of water down the river.
The mother, found clinging to a concrete barrier in the river, released her grip and slipped away from a rescuer when told her son had not been found, Fire Department spokesman Phil Champagne said. She was pulled from the river about 100 yards downstream.
Police had also believed a teenager or young man drowned in a swollen creek. An officer had jumped into the water in a rescue attempt but could not reach him, authorities said.
But because no one had been reported missing by Wednesday, police spokesman Sonny Jackson said, authorities believed the man may have pulled himself out of the stream.
(This version CORRECTS spelling of boy's last name.)
