A 54-year-old man died while keeping his young son afloat after their kayak capsized in a state lake in Perris, the California Department of Parks and Recreation announced Sunday.<\/p>\n
The father, who was not identified by the state agency, died while keeping his 7-year-old son above water during the tragedy, which unfolded Saturday afternoon at Lake Perris State Recreation Area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe father heroically kept his son afloat throughout the ordeal, supporting him until rescue personnel arrived,\u201d the department said in a statement.<\/p>\n
After reports of screaming and panic near Moreno Beach, state parks officers were dispatched to the scene shortly after 4 p.m., according to the agency. They immediately recovered the father, who was unconscious, and the child, who was holding on to his father\u2019s body. Neither had been wearing a life jacket when their kayak overturned. <\/p>\n
Witness Michelle Juarez was boating on the lake and heading to the dock when she saw an emergency boat speed in and noticed officers performing CPR on a man with at least one child on board.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A child is transported to a hospital after an accident at Lake Perris on Saturday.<\/p>\n
(OnScene.TV)<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say it was … at least 45 minutes that CPR was going on,\u201d she told news-gathering outlet OnScene.TV. \u201cWe could hear from the boat [someone] saying, \u2018Take the child to the ambulance.\u2019 … Something tragic definitely happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 7-year-old was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where his condition was being evaluated and where his father was pronounced dead, according to the state agency. The identity of the man was not available on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Another witness told OnScene.TV that another family member was evacuated after she started hyperventilating and her blood pressure spiked.<\/p>\n
The parks department urged boaters and others to wear life jackets at all times. State law requires those 12 and younger to wear a life jacket on a moving vessel. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 54-year-old man died while keeping his young son afloat after their kayak capsized in a state lake…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[48311,48310,14296,7,8707,9,8,3409,702,34287,48287,48309,48312,1725,48308,10123,2822,29255],"class_list":{"0":"post-85854","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-54-year-old-man","9":"tag-7-year-old-son","10":"tag-ambulance","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-california-department","13":"tag-california-headlines","14":"tag-california-news","15":"tag-child","16":"tag-cpr","17":"tag-kayak","18":"tag-lake-perris","19":"tag-life-jacket","20":"tag-panic","21":"tag-parks","22":"tag-socal-father","23":"tag-state-agency","24":"tag-tv","25":"tag-young-son"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}