BAKERSFIELD, Calif (KGET) — A search came to a heartbreaking end after a day-long search for a man who went missing in Kern’s most deadly body of water and now a GoFundMe has been created.
Mariel Antonio Officer, 30, was out with his friends last Thursday evening when a fun get-together on the water turned into a frantic search, according to his family. Three people fell off a raft, and at first, they all held on to each other in a desperate bid for survival.
“They were linked together because the tide was taking them too fast,” said Maria Officer, Mariel’s mother. “They couldn’t control it. They were trying to grip together and stay on the big tube. They were hugging each other, and they were doing good, but they hit this middle island…”
Maria said the group was forced apart, with her son going one way in the river, and the others, a different direction…