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Searchers find girl's body in Assiniboine River

By: Jenny Ford

Posted: 07/16/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 | Last Modified: 07/16/2012 11:44 AM | Updates

John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press On Saturday evening, Portage la Prairie RCMP and local emergency services were dispatched to search for the missing swimmer in the Assiniboine River near Poplar Point. (WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

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John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press RCMP and residents of many Hutterite colonies search for eleven-year-old Becky Waldner in the Assiniboine River Sunday. (WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

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John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press Becky Waldner, 11, went swimming and sunk in the Assiniboine River near Poplar Point Saturday evening. (WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

POPLAR POINT -- Searchers have found the body of an 11-year-old girl from a Hutterite colony near Portage la Prairie who went under the water while swimming with friends in the Assiniboine River on Saturday, RCMP report.

Becky Waldner's body was found about 10:30 a.m. today.

Members of the Poplar Point Hutterite Colony had scoured the Assiniboine River for "happy-go-lucky" Becky.

Members of Poplar Point and as many as 20 other colonies in the area desperately searched the muddy banks of the Assiniboine on foot, in boats, and with scuba gear to try to find Becky, who slipped out of sight when playing in the fast-moving water around 8 p.m. Saturday.

Earlier, her uncle Amos Waldner, minister at the colony just east of Portage la Prairie said: "She's a friendly type, full of fun". Becky couldn't swim, he said.

Portage la Prairie RCMP were called to an area near the colony Saturday evening where Becky went missing.

The initial RCMP investigation indicated a group of children was swimming when one of them became distressed and went under the water. Police, emergency services and residents searched the area, but could not find her.

Hutterites from surrounding colonies came to aid in the search for Becky Saturday night and all day Sunday.

The colony is on the south bank of the Assiniboine, which was moving fast and beyond its normal banks, strewing debris as it curved and wound downstream.

Becky had reportedly been playing on an inner tube with friends near the shore.

Colleen Maendel, from the Fairholme Colony about 25 kilometres south of Portage la Prairie, stood on the swollen bank Sunday afternoon close to where Becky and the two other girls had been playing in the water. Maendel said her niece -- who could swim -- was one of the girls playing in the water and called for help when Becky went under.

"Becky was on a tube and she started floating out, I guess. One of the other girls went and tried to pull her out. When she grabbed the tube, it flipped and (Becky) went under. The other girl, she just made it out by the reeds. She almost didn't make it," Maendel said.

In the colony school at Poplar Point, Becky's picture was removed from a bulletin board displaying photos of students.

"She was always good with the children," said Susanna Waldner, an adult member of the Poplar Point Colony, who described Becky as a "happy-go-lucky" person.

A cousin of Becky's, who did not want to be named, called Becky a loving person who liked crafts, making cards and babysitting.

Amos Waldner said about seven boats from the different colonies searched the river along with one RCMP boat.

"They shouldn't have even been here," he said -- the children are only allowed by the river with adult supervision. "It's a shock."

The river is higher than usual this year, said Roland Rasmussen, reeve for the RM of Cartier where the colony is located. "It's much higher than it was in the spring," he said. "I know I wouldn't swim in that."

Teaching water safety at Hutterite communities is something Carl Shier has worked on in the last few years, where, unfortunately, he said there is a high number of drownings because many children don't know how to swim.

"It's tragic that this happens and it's the reality of young people believing they have skills that they don't have," said Shier, CEO of the Lifesaving Society of Manitoba.

The issue is something Hutterite colony leaders recognize and are working to change, Shier said, but, "It's something that still needs to be done."

Swimming in any river is dangerous, Shier said, especially the Red and Assiniboine rivers, which are too murky, fast-moving and full of debris for someone to be found if they go under.

"The river changes and the current changes," he said. "It's never safe to swim in a river."

jennifer.ford@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 16, 2012 A3

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Updated on Monday, July 16, 2012 at 11:44 AM CDT: Updated with girl's body found

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