Man drowns while visiting Deception Falls with church group

DECEPTION FALLS, Wash. – A man visiting Deception Falls with a church group fell into the water and died Tuesday, the King County sheriff’s office said.

The 50-year-old man from China was in the U.S. on a work visa, and he and his wife were part of a group of two carloads of people from a nearby church who went to visit the falls Tuesday afternoon.

The man was in the first car, and he decided to go take a quick look at the falls while other people in the group went to the bathroom. When the second car showed up 20 minutes later and the man wasn’t back yet, everybody got concerned and started looking for him.

Nobody could find him, but his hat and jacket were snagged on a branch about 100 yards downstream from the fall. The man’s wife called 911, but search and rescue crews couldn’t find him Tuesday evening.

Crews resumed the search Wednesday morning at 7, and a diver found the man dead just before 1 p.m. Officials said there was no sign of foul play, calling the man’s death “a tragic accident.”