Dad hears son scream as he backs up houseboat in fatal mishap, Calif. sheriff says

A 49-year-old San Jose man started backing a rental houseboat up to a dock Friday afternoon on Northern California’s Lake Shasta, sheriff’s officials report.

Then he heard a scream about 4:30 p.m., Deputy Ray Hughes wrote in a Shasta County Sheriff’s Office press release.

His 23-year-old son, Kevin Rivera-Cornejo, had jumped or fallen from the houseboat’s back swim deck as his father reversed toward the dock, Hughes wrote. Rivera-Cornejo was alone at the time.

The houseboat propeller cut Rivera-Cornejo’s legs, the release says. His father shut down the engine and rushed to help pull his son from the water.

The family began CPR and called 911, then deputies applied tourniquets to his legs as they took Rivera-Cornejo in a patrol boat to be airlifted to a hospital, Hughes wrote.

But Rivera-Cornejo died of his injuries, the release says.

Alcohol was not a factor in the accident, Hughes wrote.

On Aug. 19, 45-year-old Somsanith Ricky Phuthama of El Sobrante, California, drowned at Lake Shasta while cooling off with friends, The Redding Record-Searchlight reported.

In 2018, two people died at the lake, though neither death involved the water, according to the publication. A man was found dead in his tent while a woman died after being crushed by a log.