(Updated 5:15 p.m. MDT, 08/29/2023)
BUTTE — A tragedy at a lake east of Butte after a young Butte woman drowned after a kayaking incident over the weekend.
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office reports that 20-year-old Abigail Richards of Butte drowned after the kayak she was in tipped over in Delmoe Lake at about 10 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 27.
Richards was in a small, single-person kayak with a young man and a dog when the kayak flipped over in the water. The young man and the dog safely swam to shore.
“And the boyfriend actually made it to the opposite shore and by the time it was dark and friends on the camping side of the lake heard the boyfriend yelling for the girl and they assumed that something was wrong so they made the call into 911,” said Jefferson County Sheriff Tom Grimsrud.
Emergency responders and search crews from Jefferson County and surrounding counties responded to Delmoe Lake but were unable to find the missing woman.
“We called LifeFlight out of Butte and LifeFlight flew over the Delmoe Lake area and located her with their spotlight.
The Jefferson County sheriff said this was a difficult operation because they rarely deal with water rescues from Delmoe Lake.
“Just a bad decision on the party's part, you know, to fit two people in a kayak that's not made for two people and then to put a dog in there on top of it. Kayaks are very tippy,” the sheriff said.
