Search efforts were reduced Monday for Aleh Kalman, a California teen who went missing at Yosemite National Park over the weekend and is now presumed dead after being swept over a 600-foot waterfall.
Kalman, 19, of Sacramento, Calif., was hiking with his church group on the Mist Trail in Yosemite National Park on Saturday when he decided to go swimming in the nearby Merced River. According to reports, Kalman was officially reported missing when members of his church group saw him being pulled by the river's currents toward the 600-foot Nevada Fall.
The Epoch Times reports that a California Highway Patrol search team scoured the area for the rest of the day on Saturday, looking for the teen. The search resumed at dawn on Sunday morning, with rescuers searching on foot and by air. By Monday, Kalman still hadn't been found and officials have since announced that the teen is presumed dead.
"We did a big search on Saturday and yesterday we did another big search, so today we're going into a limited continuous search," Scott Gediman, a Yosemite National Park ranger told reporters on Monday.
According to USA Today, a limited continuous search means that rescue teams will search the area every few days or when the water level drops to expose more of the riverbank.
Gediman said that as of Monday, efforts to locate Kalman have likely evolved from an active search to focussing on recovering his body, because the likelihood of making it out alive after going over a 600-foot vertical drop is very low.
"It's almost impossible to survive," Gediman said.
According to ABC News, Yosemite officials say there are warning signs all throughout the park advising visitors against swimming in the rapid-flow rivers above the waterfalls.
"We don't recommend swimming in that river anywhere, we would assume that people who choose to swim in those areas know that if you go down, you're going to go over the side of the fall," Gediman said.
Kalman marks the first waterfall-related death at Yosemite in 2013, a fate not as rare as you might think. In 2012, four people drowned; and in 2011 the falls took seven victims.
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