A 19-year-old Camas resident drowned Friday night after jumping from a rope swing into Round Lake at Lacamas Park, struggling to stay afloat as good Samaritans tried but failed to pull him from the water. Camas police and firefighters were dispatched shortly after 7:30 p.m., but low visibility and underwater obstructions eventually forced divers to call off their search until morning. His body was located shortly before noon on Saturday, after crews resumed the effort at daybreak.
The teen jumped into the lake and quickly began struggling to stay afloat, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive, which reported that nearby swimmers attempted a rescue before he went under. Clark County Sheriff's Office divers, aided by the Vancouver Fire Department's heavy rescue team, searched the water Friday night, but police said the search continued until 3:30 a.m. before conditions made it too dangerous to keep going. Divers picked the search back up Saturday morning, this time with help from a human remains detection dog, before locating the young man's body. As of the report, officials had not publicly identified the victim.
A Lake That Keeps Claiming Young Lives
Friday's drowning is not an isolated tragedy at this stretch of water. In May 2025, 24-year-old Mouaid F. Barakat drowned after jumping into the canal near the same pedestrian bridge connecting Round Lake and Lacamas Lake, dying days after Vancouver rescue divers pulled him out, according to KGW. Years earlier, in August 2019, 14-year-old Anthony T. Huynh drowned after jumping from that same bridge while swimming with friends, prompting a multi-agency dive search that recovered his body hours later, per the Camas-Washougal Post-Record.
Lacamas Regional Park spans 312 acres around Round Lake in Clark County and draws crowds for bass, bluegill, and perch fishing, but the same water hides slippery rock formations, heavy aquatic vegetation, and low visibility that complicate rescues, according to Clark County Parks. Those underwater conditions are exactly what hampered Friday night's search, forcing divers to suspend operations before daylight.
Local Firefighters Still Can't Legally Enter the Water
The recurring drownings have exposed a gap in local emergency response. The union representing Camas-Washougal firefighters, IAFF Local 2444, has said local first responders are legally barred from entering the water during rescues because they lack formal swift-water and subsurface dive certification, leaving them dependent on mutual aid from agencies like Vancouver Fire, the same report from KGW noted. That reliance on outside divers was on display again Friday night, when Clark County Sheriff's Office divers and Vancouver's heavy rescue team took the lead on the search rather than local crews.
The Camas-Washougal Fire Department received a $33,000 private donation in 2021 to buy two rescue boats, including a Zodiac inflatable suited for Round Lake and Lacamas Lake, but the department still has no funded subsurface dive rescue team, the Post-Record reported. Shore-based equipment can help stabilize a scene, but underwater search and recovery still requires calling in regional dive units, as happened again this weekend.
City Weighs Signs and Barriers as Deaths Continue
City leaders in Camas formed an ad hoc safety committee last July to study physical barriers, warning signage, and public education aimed at curbing dangerous water jumping and unauthorized rope swings around the pedestrian bridge and Round Lake area, according to the Post-Record. That effort followed a similar 2021 decision by the city to approve a Warning and Education Signage pilot campaign after public debate over installing fencing along the Lacamas Park trail bridge or hiring seasonal bridge monitors, rather than physical barriers.
Cold water remains an underappreciated danger at sites like this one. Washington State Parks safety guidance warns that sudden immersion in water below 60 degrees Fahrenheit can trigger cold-water shock and incapacitate a swimmer within minutes, a factor tied to the state's roughly 100 annual drownings, the Post-Record has reported. Nationally, CDC data released in 2024 shows annual drowning deaths in the United States climbed past 4,500 a year between 2020 and 2022, an increase of roughly 500 deaths compared with 2019.
Round Lake and Lacamas Lake also face recurring environmental hazards beyond drowning risk. Clark County Public Health regularly issues summer advisories for both lakes due to toxic blue-green algae cyanotoxins, warning visitors to avoid contact with scummy water during peak heat, as Hoodline has previously reported. Combined with murky depths and submerged obstructions, the lake's popularity as a summer swimming spot continues to sit uneasily alongside its history of fatal accidents.
