A 56-year-old man is missing after he was swept away by the Mississippi River about 13 miles southeast of Red Wing on Saturday.
Witnesses said the man was wading along a sandbar near Frontenac State Park’s Long Point Beach with a 12-year-old girl, who was a close family friend, the Goodhue County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
The Goodhue County Emergency Communications Center received a water emergency call at 3:15 p.m., the officials said.
A nearby boat spotted the girl flailing her arms in distress and rescued her as water rose above her head, the officials said, citing witnesses. She did not sustain injuries.
The man disappeared under the water and did not resurface, witnesses told officials.
Officials from agencies including the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Minnesota State Patrol helped in the search, the sheriff’s office said. They deployed drones to assist in the search.
The search is ongoing, with officials on Sunday using “specialized water search and recovery resources,” the office said.
Neither the man nor the girl were wearing life jackets.
