Omak boy, 8, dies after plunge into frigid water

An 8-year-old boy died Sunday after falling into frigid water in a shallow drainage canal about 20 miles northwest of Omak, Washington.

Chanse Tepley and his 6-year-old brother were left unsupervised while playing at a neighbor’s home and wandered into a fenced area near a spillway at Conconully Lake around 2:30 p.m., according to their aunt, Estefania Foreman.

“They wanted to be adventurous and walk on the thick ice that was at the water’s edge,” Foreman said in a text message. “Chance fell through the ice and into the freezing water.”

Foreman said the 6-year-old tried to pull his older brother from the water before waving down a passing truck for help.

Tony Hawley, the incoming sheriff of Okanogan County, said Tepley was in the water for about a half-hour, though Foreman said it was “no more than 15 minutes” before his mother’s boyfriend pulled him out.

The boy was taken to Mid-Valley Hospital in Omak, where staff tried unsuccessfully to warm and resuscitate him, Hawley said.

The county coroner, David Rodriguez, determined the cause of the death was drowning.

Foreman said Tepley, originally from the Moses Lake area, turned 8 on Dec. 14. She described him as a caring and inquisitive “boy’s boy” who loved camping, Nerf guns and G.I. Joes.

The family is raising money for funeral arrangements on GoFundMe.com and said Tepley’s organs would be donated for those in need of transplants.