Father loses grip, 6-year-old son swept away and presumed dead in northern Arizona floodwaters

Father loses grip, Ariz. boy swept away in flood

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — A father clung to his son and a tree in a rain-swollen northern Arizona river before losing his grip on the 6-year-old boy, who was swept away by the rushing waters and is presumed dead, a fire chief said.

Searchers spent Friday looking for the boy’s body with no success, a day after David and Katrina Baudek of rural Mayer loaded their two children, Jacob and Desiree, into a pickup during a powerful winter storm. They were trying to get Jacob to a hospital because he was sick, authorities said.

The family left their home about 70 miles north of Phoenix and headed out on a dirt road that normally is passable.

Tributaries of the nearby Agua Fria River had already flooded local roads. The Baudeks crossed one of them, then decided travel was too dangerous and turned back. They made it 40 feet across a 50-foot wash when the fast-moving water caught their Chevrolet Avalanche and carried it 20 feet downstream, said Mayer Fire Chief Glenn Brown.

Katrina Baudek escaped to higher ground as her husband moved the two children into the truck’s bed for safety.

A witness nearby heard the commotion and threw David Baudek a rope while someone called for help as storm waters rose and covered the truck’s roof, Brown said. Separated by 40 feet of rushing water, rescuers could do nothing but beg for a helicopter — something weather conditions wouldn’t allow, he said.

After holding on to both children and the rope for about two hours, the father lost his grip and dove toward the shore. Somehow, possibly with the help of her mother, the girl reached safety on the shore as David Baudek clutched a tree and his son.

He lost his grip, and Jacob Baudek was swept away.

“Seeing it, you cannot imagine how he was able to hold on as long as he did,” Brown said.

An Arizona Department of Public Safety crew flew over the area Friday where Jacob was last seen and spotted debris piles. Ground crews searched them and found the blue and green pajamas the boy was wearing more than a mile from where the truck got stuck, said Yavapai County sheriff’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn. A backpack the boy was carrying also was recovered, he said.

But there still was no sign of the boy, who also was wearing black and green tennis shoes and had a red and orange blanket wrapped around him. Authorities fear his body might be buried in the mud, and the water would have to recede before it could be recovered, D’Evelyn said.

The search was suspended Friday evening while authorities figure out what to do next, he said.

Meanwhile, the family is stuck at home, a river physically separating them from authorities. “They are doing the best they can under the circumstances, he said.

Conditions wouldn’t have allowed the boy to survive, he said.

“A 6-year-old, depending on his medical condition, would probably be unconscious fairly quickly and not have the knowledge of what to do or how to react and probably couldn’t swim,” he said. “Even an adult would have a hard time in this situation.”

Cooper reported from Phoenix.