An adult body was pulled from a canal in east Phoenix Thursday morning after it was spotted floating in the water west of the Arizona Biltmore, prompting a police investigation into how the person died. Officers and fire crews were called to the area of 24th Street and Bethany Home Road shortly before 7:30 a.m.
Firefighters recovered the body approximately 20 minutes after crews arrived on scene, according to AZ Family, which first reported the recovery. Phoenix police are now investigating the circumstances that led to the death, though no additional details about the victim or the cause have been released. The waterway is part of the Arizona Canal, a roughly 50-mile channel that forms the northernmost stretch of the Salt River Project's 131-mile water delivery network across the Valley, according to the Salt River Project.
This is far from an isolated find along Phoenix's canal system. In June, firefighters recovered the body of an adult man floating face-down in a central Phoenix canal near 23rd Avenue and Indian School Road, an incident that also triggered a police death investigation, as reported by 12News. Officers at the time reported no immediate signs of foul play in that case.
A System Built for Water, Not for Wading
Salt River Project rules strictly prohibit swimming, kayaking, canoeing, and tubing in its canals, citing smooth, steep concrete sides and swift currents that can make climbing out without help nearly impossible. The agency's canal network delivers water to roughly 2.5 million Valley residents, but the same infrastructure that irrigates the region also creates a persistent drowning hazard for anyone who ends up in the water.
The Arizona Canal's banks are also home to an urban trail system used by more than one million recreational visitors each year for running, walking, and biking, including the very stretch between 43rd Avenue and 24th Street near Bethany Home Road, according to KTAR News. That heavy foot traffic means canal-side incidents and bodies are often first spotted by passersby rather than emergency crews.
Not every canal recovery ends in tragedy. In June, bystanders pulled an unconscious man from the Arizona Canal near 29th Avenue and Dunlap Road and performed CPR before Phoenix fire crews arrived, transporting him to a trauma center in critical condition — an incident Hoodline covered as the north Phoenix canal rescue near Metrocenter. Days later, though, Phoenix police opened separate homicide investigations after a man was found dead near a south Phoenix canal and another man's body was discovered on fire near a canal across town, with investigators not immediately confirming any link between the two cases, per FOX 10 Phoenix.
Rising Numbers Behind the Recoveries
The scattered incidents reflect a broader upward trend. The Phoenix Fire Department's April 2026 Monthly Drowning Report recorded 13 adult canal drowning incidents in 2025, up from five in 2024 and just one in 2023. Regionally, emergency responders across Maricopa and Pinal counties logged 104 water-related incidents between January 1 and July 30 this year, resulting in 39 deaths, including 34 adults, according to Children's Safety Zone.
The danger extends beyond adults. In July, a non-verbal 13-year-old autistic boy drowned after being carried two blocks by current in an irrigation canal on the neighboring Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, with multi-agency searchers locating him hours after he wandered off, FOX 10 Phoenix reported. When crews respond to canal emergencies, Phoenix Fire Department protocol calls for certified Technical Rescue Teams to deploy ground ladders, swift-water gear, or shallow water entries — the department maintains more than 200 firefighters certified in that specialty.
It remains unclear whether Thursday's death will be ruled accidental or something else. As with several recent canal recoveries across the city, including ones Hoodline has previously reported near the Grand Canal crime scene, that determination will likely fall to the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner once its examination is complete. Phoenix police have not said whether foul play is suspected in this case.
