A 22-year-old Jackson man died on Monday while floating on the Snake River, a Teton County Sheriff’s Department official told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.
Sgt. Clayton Platt said Hector Bedolla-Zarate was declared dead on Monday after being pulled unconscious from the river.
Platte said Bedolla-Zarate had been floating on an inner tube on a stretch of the river known as “King’s Wave.”
“Several witnesses saw him struggling in the water at one point and he also did not have a life vest on,” Platt said. “A bystander pulled him to shore, but he had already been underwater for a bit.”
Platt said Bedolla-Zarate was pulled to the shoreline between two boat ramps by witnesses, who were performing CPR on the young man when deputies arrived.
Platt said he did not think the water levels were particularly high at the river on Monday following the floods in the area that closed Yellowstone National Park almost one month ago.
The Jackson Hole News and Guide reported that in 2017, another Fourth of July drowning occurred on the same stretch of the river. A 21-year-old man was thrown from a raft and was not wearing a life jacket at the time.
His body was found around a week later, by a kayaker, the outlet reported.
This is the most recent drowning to occur in Teton County. In late June, an Ohio man was killed while rafting on the Gros Ventre River.
