RENTON, Wash. – Police say a report of a child missing in the fast-moving Cedar River Tuesday was a mistaken report by witnesses. A woman and her dog who did end up in the river were rescued.
Neighbors called 911 to report a woman and a child in the river near Cedar River Park after they heard the woman yelling.
Major Crimes Unit detectives spoke to the three witnesses who thought they saw the woman and a child in the water, but it turned out to be the same woman that they saw twice.
"It sounds like a miscommunication between the citizens," said Sgt. D.B. Gates, a King County Sheriff's Office spokesperson. Gates described the woman as "very small," which is why she may have been mistaken by others as a child.
It's believed the woman fell into the river after her dog fell or jumped in.
The woman spent some 30 minutes in the water before being rescued and taken to the hospital.
The dog, a black lab, somehow managed to get itself out of the river and made its way back home on its own.
Gates said the woman was not immediately able to articulate that there was not a child missing.
"She was not able to give detectives a good understanding of what had happened to her and I don't know if that's due to hypothermia from being in the river," said Gates.
Detectives also contacted the woman's family and determined that she would not have been with a child, but that took some time. That is why searchers spent hours in the 32-degree waters, which Gates said were moving three-times faster than normal.
"I don't think we could ask for a better outcome," said Gates.
