Raegan Heitzig Search-Lake Havasu
On September 1st, 2018, between the Topock Marina and Pirate’s Cove which is north of Lake Havasu in Arizona, on the California border, there was an extremely serious crash involving 2 boats on the Colorado River. Between the 2 vessels, it involved 16 people. It occurred around 8 in the evening. Live accident victims were picked up by other boaters as much as 5 miles away from the scene, due to the strong currents of the mighty Colorado. 3 of the 4 that lost their lives were recovered in the following few days. Raegan Heitzig was yet unlocated.
I was contacted by Tabby Grawbowski, who lost her husband, niece and 2 friends and was able to leave with Beth on a 28-hour drive on Thursday October 4th. When we arrived, we were graciously greeted by Deputy Cox, of the Mohave County Sheriff’s Department. We were given a tour and information to get our search initiated.
We were put in contact with Harriet McLearen through Tabby. Harriet has been unbelievable and unstoppable in providing us contacts and exposure so that we have had a place to stay, meals and other needs during our stay. She is a busy woman who supports the community and is therefore supported by it as well. This entire community is above the norm in its support for each other and for us, to say the very least. The families, friends, total strangers, the municipalities and volunteers are amazing.
For the following morning, we were grateful to see our friends John and Matt from the Reno area, who live another 9 hours away from this search. They have joined us on other searches as volunteers as well. They have been an integral part of our team towards the west and are beyond generous. They are problem solvers, jacks of all trades, and have the physical and mental stamina to do many hours on the boat with us. We can simply not say enough about them.
The 4 of us set out the next morning with the assistance and escort of the Mohave County Sheriff’s Department and their Volunteer Search and Rescue Group. They assisted us and kept us safe throughout the search. This is a busy area and their help was very important to us and deeply appreciated.
We began our search near the crash site and, over the 5 next days, we covered the 18 mile stretch of the river in likely areas with our sonar. We checked the deep hole areas, where it was unsafe for divers to dive previously, with our Outland Technologies ROV. Many Sonar targets were checked with the ROV as well. Visual magnified shore search from the boat was also done in all the likely areas. We also searched the mouth of the river approximately a mile out into Lake Havasu. We located 2 boats inadvertently by sonar, one was 27 feet long and one was 16 feet long.
Our last day was spent covering more sonar area and doing more visual shore searching. We also rechecked the Topock Marina and other docks nearby the crash site. Once we have covered an area, as we have done for this search, it is very hard to move on to our next search. This river area is very large and has an extreme current, making a huge amount of possible results for Raegan’s location. These results could take months to cover with still no result. We are saddened for her family and friends and have hopes and prayers for her earthly body to yet be located by some other means.