Search crews recovered the body of a missing 10-year-old girl from the Passaic River in Wallington, New Jersey, on Friday evening, ending a grim two-day effort that began when three children were swept into the water while playing near a boat ramp.
The girl's body was found just before 7 p.m. ET, roughly 100 feet south of the Market Street Bridge, after a civilian couple spotted something in the water from their apartment window and dialed 911. Boats reached the scene within 15 minutes. Passaic Mayor Hector Lora announced the recovery at a press conference Friday night, CBS News New York reported.
The tragedy started Wednesday evening at the Pulaski Park boat ramp in Passaic, when three children, a 10-year-old girl, a 10-year-old boy, and an 11-year-old girl, were swept into the river. All three were from Garfield, New Jersey. The 11-year-old managed to pull herself out of the water on her own. The boy's body was recovered late Wednesday night. The girl remained missing for two more days.
Search crews covered nearly nine miles of the Passaic River between Wednesday evening and Friday, deploying boats, sonar equipment, drones, and cadaver dogs. Passaic Fire Chief Patrick Trentacost Sr. said his teams never stopped until they had exhausted every option.
"We never, ever pulled our people out until we felt that there was no other thing we could do."
By Friday evening, crews were preparing to suspend the search for the night. Then the break came, not from a drone or a sonar ping, but from two residents who happened to glance out their window.
The unnamed couple lived in a building near the Market Street Bridge. They saw something in the river, ran outside, confirmed their suspicion, and called 911 immediately. Mayor Lora credited them directly.
"We are so grateful to this couple. Some people would've seen something obscure and went back into their apartment, but not this couple."
Lora made clear how close the family came to never recovering the girl's body at all. The Passaic River's current was fast and strong that evening. Had the couple not acted, the body could have drifted through the night toward Newark Bay, and possibly out of reach for good.
The incident is the latest in a series of water-related tragedies involving children this summer. In a separate case, a six-year-old Brooklyn girl drowned after a current swept her into Great Peconic Bay, a reminder of how quickly moving water can overwhelm even in seemingly calm conditions.
After the recovery, the girl's family was brought to the scene. Garfield Mayor Everett E. Garnto Jr. described the mother's reaction, grief mixed with a measure of solace that her daughter had been found.
"I'm just so grateful that the body was recovered. Unfortunately, it's not the outcome we wanted, but it gives the family tonight some peace. The mother was able to see her daughter, and she was so very distraught, she was, but when she came back and sat down, she said, 'She looked just like she was when she left the house.' So I'm glad it brought the mother peace."
Mayor Lora described the mother's state as one of "extreme grief and understanding that there was confirmation that she has lost her daughter," tempered by what he called "some relief" at finally seeing her child.
Lora also noted a detail that stuck with those at the scene: despite no rain in the area, a rainbow appeared and held in the sky while the mother waited. He said it brought the mother some comfort.
Water rescues rarely end well once a victim has been submerged for an extended period. Earlier this summer, five adults drowned in an Ohio river after a chain of rescue attempts went wrong, leaving children orphaned, a stark illustration of how fast still or moving water can turn fatal.
The names of all three children have not been released. Lora said both families requested privacy. The 10-year-old boy and the 11-year-old girl who survived are siblings. The relationship between the 10-year-old girl and the other two children was not specified. One family was described as having ties to Passaic, though the nature of those ties was not explained.
Several questions remain unanswered. Whether the children were supervised by adults at the time they entered the water has not been addressed publicly. No official cause of death has been announced for either child, and it is unclear whether a medical examiner's determination is pending. No ongoing investigation into the circumstances has been disclosed.
When emergencies involving children and water do produce survivors, the outcomes often hinge on someone acting fast. In one recent case, a teenage lifeguard in California pulled a drowning boy from the surf and earned a White House invitation, a rare bright spot in a season marked by loss.
The boy's father later said his son believed he was going to die before the lifeguard reached him, a reminder of how thin the margin is between rescue and tragedy.
In the end, it was not a drone, a sonar array, or a cadaver dog that found the missing girl. It was two people who looked out their window, saw something wrong, and refused to turn away. Fire crews searched for two days across nine miles of river. Officials held press conferences. Equipment was deployed around the clock.
But the recovery happened because a couple in an apartment near the Market Street Bridge chose to act. Fifteen minutes later, the girl was out of the water.
Every summer, families bury children who were playing near water one moment and gone the next. The people who deserve attention in these stories are the ones who run toward the river, not the ones who write the policies nobody reads until it is too late.
