By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent

An accidental drowning at Mona Reservoir claimed the life of Derik Terry, 19, Eureka.
Juab County Sheriff Alden Orme said the man and a friend were swimming at the reservoir when the drowning occurred. The accident took place on Sunday, April 29, at 6:27 p.m. near the dam.
“The boys had been diving off the rocks,” said Orme. “The friend said the victim reported that he couldn’t swim and then went under.”
The friend waited a few minutes thinking that Terry was kidding. When Terry did not surface, the friend began trying to see him through the water. Failing that, he also jumped in and tried to locate him under water.
“He reported that he decided he needed help and got out of the water and used his cell phone to call,” said Orme.
“We had people there within 13 minutes,” said Orme.
In addition to the ambulance crew which had been paged out, he said, he called out four local divers. He also called on divers from Utah County and Summit County.
“The divers from Utah County were in our county en-route to a training session and had all of their equipment with them,” he said. “They had just passed Nephi and turned around and returned to the scene.”
He also called on State Parks and Recreation and the Department of Public Safety for help with the search effort.
As he was traveling to the scene, he said, he called the Goshen Water Users and asked them to shut down the water going over the dam. They had responded that they would hurry to the scene and do as requested.
He arrived shortly after the ambulance and deputies who had been dispatched. Orme said they broke the lock on the door of the control center for the irrigation system but, once inside, they realized they could not do anything.
“There was a whole wall of hydraulics,” said Orme.
There was no way to tell which operation would close the water down and which would increase the flow.
It was too dangerous, he said, to send the divers into the water until the flow was stopped.
Where Terry was last seen, said Orme, was in the 22-foot deep water being sucked out at the dam.
“The water was also cold, it was 59-degrees,” he said.
As soon as the irrigators arrived and turned off the water, the divers were in the water.
Orme said the Department of Public Safety has a sonar system and Summit County has a robot. Those sophisticated systems have been successfully used in the past.
“We mixed our local divers with the divers we had requested,” Orme said. “By this time, we knew we were not going to have a rescue but were hoping for a recovery.”
“The divers made two dives,” he said.
On the first dive, they checked the dam thinking that the suction of the water coming from the dam had been holding him.
On the second dive, the body of Terry was recovered and was found in the water as the divers headed down.
“We wanted to recover the body before dark and we completed the search successfully by 8:30 p.m.”
There was no delay for the family as searchers spent days looking for Terry.
“It was, of course, still a great tragedy,” he said.
The two boys were employed at NRP in Nephi and were in the process of getting an apartment in Nephi. They had decided to go for a swim in the evening and selected Mona Reservoir.
Terry was taken to the state medical examiner’s office for an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death. At first, said Orme, it was thought that Terry had been held under water by the powerful suction of the water at the dam but then it was thought he may have suffered a cramp because of the extremely cold water.
“The total time of the recovery effort was two hours,” said Orme.
He said divers could not go into the water until Goshen Irrigation Company arrived to shut the dam flow off because it was much too dangerous.
“We are lucky his friend did not drown in attempting to look for him,” said Orme. “Then we would have had a double tragedy.”