A 17-year-old boy’s body has been recovered from the water where he went missing while swimming on Wednesday. Pablo Guevara was swimming with family members at the Elizabeth Landing boat ramp in Stoney Creek, just outside the Patapsco River, and didn’t return.
The 17-year-old was last seen at 8:30 p.m. swimming from the beach in Pasadena, Maryland. He didn’t return to shore with the others, and the Coast Guard was called around 11 p.m.
A Coast Guard Station Curtis Bay 45-foot Response Boat-Medium crew responded to the scene and a Coast Guard helicopter was launched to search the area. Emergency responders spent a combined 11 hours overnight and into the morning searching for the missing teen, even as strong thunderstorms hit the area with wind over 39 miles per hour.
The Coast Guard suspended its search for the teen just after 9 a.m. Thursday. Anne Arundel County police and fire departments, the Maryland Natural Resources Police, and the Baltimore City Fire Department continued searching for Guevara into Thursday. The Anne Arundel County Fire Department recovered his body in the afternoon.
Anne Arundel County, which contains 533 miles of winding shoreline, shared this advice for people wanting to cool off and swim in its waters:
Coast Guard leaders say the teenager’s death is a “truly tragic moment.” Cmdr. Rob Concepcion, Chief of Response for Sector Maryland–National Capital Region, says, “Our hearts ache for the missing swimmer’s family and friends.”
Concepcion points to staffing shortages, as Chesapeake Bay Magazine has recently reported on in other parts of the Bay, as one of the challenges in this search. “Despite the stormy weather and the Coast Guard being understaffed right now, we had numerous crews scouring the area in hopes of bringing the swimmer home safely.”
The teen’s death is the latest of several water emergencies in the last week, as a heat wave has held much of the Bay region in its grips. A 64-year-old woman riding on the back of a personal watercraft nearly drowned in Ocean City on June 22, and a search was underway for a missing boater on the Elk River earlier this week.
Natural Resources Police say that, whether you’re beating the heat by swimming from shore or boating on the Bay, open water holds hidden hazards like currents, depth changes, and limited visibility.
We’ll update these developing stories as we learn more.
